


Space Oddity

by crinklefries, cyclamental art (cyclamental), nalonzoo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 100 tropes in a trench coat, 2012 Loki, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Medical, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, Canon Typical Violence, De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Digital Art, Enemies to Lovers, Exes to Lovers, Fix-It, Found Family, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mirror Universe, Multiple Alternate Universes, Multiverse, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Second Chance Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Tesseract ex machina, Thor & Bucky go on a multiverse roadtrip, Wibbly Wobbly Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:08:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 147,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26973430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/pseuds/crinklefries, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyclamental/pseuds/cyclamental%20art, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nalonzoo/pseuds/nalonzoo
Summary: After the world ends, things happen to Bucky in this specific order: he helps defeat Thanos, he rejects Steve’s attempt to address Feelings, he watches Steve volunteer to put the Infinity Stones back in time, he waits for Steve to come back, he is sad when Steve does not come back, he realizes that everyone thinks Steve disappeared in 2012 (???), he gets taken to space by Carol Danvers (!!!), he meets up with a depressed literal alien Norse God, he and the depressed literal alien Norse God travel through space, he and the depressed literal alien Norse God hit a wormhole and fall into the--Multiverse.What the fuck.This is the story of how Bucky and Thor pick up the pieces of their lives, find their own worth, find their own person, and find their way out of a multiverse of 100 realities stitched together with 100 tropes. There’s love, there’s friendship, there’s an extreme amount of Tesseract fuckery, but most importantly there are sexy vampires. Bon Appetit.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Thor, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 772
Kudos: 455
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2019, Not Another Stucky Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter One. [no oddity]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



> OH BOY. Thank you and welcome to my (excessive) (monstrous) (unwieldy) (inexplicable) contribution to the **2020 (Not) Another Stucky Big Bang**! This approximately 145K ridiculous work of 700 tropes and 200 AUs was originally supposed to be 60K MAX, but one thing led to another and Thor and Bucky could not shut the fuck up and so here we are. With this thing. 
> 
> Thank you IMMENSELY to my incredible and astounding artists [nalonzooo](https://twitter.com/nalonzooo) and [cyclamental](https://twitter.com/cyclamental), who cheerleaded me & created just stellar works of art for this dumb fic. I am so grateful that I was able to work with you guys for this Bang and so goddamn excited for everyone to see what you've done here!
> 
> This fic is also for _aurilly_ , who so kindly bid on me for Marvel Trumps Hate last year and didn't give me a whole lot of guidelines other than "Bucky and Steve should have canon history" and "I want Bucky and Loki to have friends" and so that is what you will receive, with a BUNCH of other ridiculous stuff mixed in as well.
> 
>  **Testimonials** for this fic include: a minimum of 7 people telling me they knew _immediately_ which NASBB claim slide was mine, at least 10 people straight up laughing at me for my original estimated length, and steebadore, who has said this of this fic: " _Have you ever wanted to read 7 full length stories inside one full length story? Have I got the fic for you!_ "
> 
> Thank you to all for reading and to all who comment. I see you and I appreciate you and probably Bucky Barnes does too! ♥

*

**[ earth. 2023.]**

The end of the world doesn’t come the way he expects it to. Bucky has spent decades having his brain scrambled, diced, re-scrambled, and scraped back together with off-brand paste by an underground operation of Nazis and it’s still somehow beyond the boundaries of his imagination that the world could end with the snap of someone’s fingers.

But it does.

The world ends and Bucky spends five years as the memory of space dust and then, one day, the dust formerly known as Doctor Strange tells him and his other space dust compatriots that it’s time to resume their normal human form.

There’s a battle, that ugly purple motherfucker again, Stark snaps his fingers, Stark dies, and then there’s a funeral and a five year gap that half of the world remembers and the other half doesn’t. That, at least, is something that Bucky is used to.

The aftermath of the world ending is a lot more paperwork and insurance adjustment than Bucky would have expected, but the rebuilding process is so fraught and, furthermore, so tedious, that someone with high security clearance at the U.S. government just gives Bucky a tired once-over and hands him a piece of paper that says something to the effect of _Congratulations Bucky Barnes, you’re a free man!_

He spends half a day looking at that, as though a piece of government-issued paper could absolve him of decades of being the gun that HYDRA pointed and pulled the trigger on. He guesses legally it can, but it does nothing to resolve the knot of hard-earned and hard-worn guilt that gives him heartburn in the middle of the night, so his eyes bug out around the twentieth time he re-reads the paltry, one-page document and in a pique of confused anger, he tears it to pieces.

He immediately regrets this action and picks the pieces back up to try to tape back together.

“Buck?” Steve asks, uncertainly, from behind his shoulder.

Bucky could and likely should have picked a better place to process internal turmoil than the kitchen he shares with his former best friend of complicated origin and even more complicated whatever-comes-after-origin, but he hadn’t and now he has tape stuck to his fingers and in between his shifting arm plates and an expression on his face like someone stepped on his cat.

“I’m fine,” Bucky says.

“You have tape in your hair,” Steve says, cautiously.

Steve says most things to Bucky cautiously now and Bucky doesn’t know if it’s the one hundred year history or the amnesia or the fact that they had never discussed the time Bucky had shot Steve seven times in the stomach or the period where Bucky was cryogenically frozen or the five years of space dust separation, but every time Bucky hears the note of caution in Steve’s voice—as though he doesn’t know where they stand or what to do with Bucky—Bucky feels the distinct urge to scream.

“I meant to put it there,” Bucky says.

Steve opens his mouth to say something and just as quickly snaps it shut. He gives Bucky a cautious smile and moves around the kitchen island to fill a glass of water. Bucky scowls at Steve’s back and feeling wrong-footed, tries to peel as many pieces of tape off of him as possible in the time between the faucet turning on and Steve turning around, glass to mouth, to stare at Bucky with his too-large, too-blue eyes.

Bucky gets to most of the tape.

He stares down at his hastily pieced-together sheet of paper.

> _In the case of United States v. Barnes, the government has chosen to withdraw its criminal petition against the aforementioned. Be it noted that Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes is hereby free of all criminal charges. This case is ordered sealed by judicial order._

The words don’t have their intended effect. Bucky should feel relieved, grateful, even awed. Instead, he feels something short of hollow.

All of those people gone by his hands and he’s free to live a life he’s not sure he’s really earned. They don’t tell you that you can help save the world and still have to wrestle your past demons.

“What do you want for dinner?” Steve asks, quietly.

Bucky swallows, that horrible, empty knot clenched in his chest, anxiety simmering somewhere near his stomach.

He can’t look up at his best friend now—not knowing what Steve has lost; not knowing what Bucky has been given.

“I’m not hungry,” he says.

He doesn’t look up at Steve.

Instead, he takes his sheet of paper and his guilt and shuts himself in his room.

*

What makes it difficult to live with Steve isn’t the century of unresolved issues or the past decade of half-truths and brief intermission as intergalactic space molecules; it’s the way Steve looks at him. Bucky is used to dodging AK-47 shots to the head and knives aimed for his ribs, but there hasn’t been a lifetime yet that he’s been able to avoid the intensity of Steve’s scrutiny. He feels it boring into the back of his neck, sometimes when Steve isn’t even in the room, and it feels like a layer of spikes under his skin, or an allergic reaction that leaves it impossible to breathe.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Bucky mutters once and Steve blinks at him slowly, as though it’s never occurred to him that this is what he’s been doing.

“How do you want me to look at you, Buck?” Steve asks, in response.

“I don’t,” Bucky answers then, which is the truth and also a lie; sometimes, an answer can be both things.

It’s difficult to explain to Steve that it’s been five years going on one hundred and the world has ended and Bucky has been pardoned and what he finds himself with isn’t a blank slate or a fresh start, but an endless stretch of time filled with ghosts he can no longer ignore.

Bucky wakes up most nights, sweating and twisted in his sheets, his voice hoarse from yelling. Steve never comes in, even when he’s suffering the worst of these terrors, but Bucky stares wildly up at the ceiling, after it’s passed, his heart battering somewhere near his throat, his pulse in his ears, and still he hears Steve breathing outside of his door, one hand on the doorknob.

Bucky doesn’t know how to handle Steve’s caution and he knows how to handle Steve’s devotion even less. It’s like he fell off a train eighty-something years ago, and Steve’s never stopped trying to catch him.

Bucky wants to tell him to stop, wants to press a metal hand to Steve’s chest and shove him away, push him until he stumbles backwards, trips on his feet and looks up to see what Bucky sees in the mirror every day—not the Bucky that Steve had lost, but one Steve had never known. What forgiveness has he earned? What worship?

He doesn’t want Steve’s caution or his devotion. He wants Steve to understand that Bucky had sunk seven bullets into his stomach and jumping into the Potomac and dragging his near-lifeless body onto a riverbank didn’t change the seven times he pulled the trigger.

He’s a monster, he thinks. He wants Steve to treat him as such.

  
The problem with living with Steve is that Steve is a big man and hard to miss. He’s a stubborn asshole too and even harder to avoid. He has that look in his eyes every time Bucky stops in the same room as him, as though he’s going to say something he won’t be able to take back.

That makes Bucky’s breath come up short. He presses a hand to his chest to catch the pain. He doesn’t stay in rooms with Steve for very long. He doesn’t wait to hear an offer he won’t be able to accept.

  
It’s all irrelevant, in the end. Steve catches up to him, because they live in the same apartment, and Bucky has been avoiding him for a month, and because there isn’t a place on Earth Bucky can run to that Steve won’t find him. Stubborn fucking bastard.

One day, Steve presses his palm to Bucky’s cheek and tilts his face up to look at him, his fingers so firmly gripping Bucky’s jaw that he can’t look away, much less escape.

“Buck,” Steve says in a voice so soft that it causes Bucky’s adrenaline to spike, a panic caught sharp and hot at the base of his spine.

Bucky’s like a startled animal, caught while trying to run.

He doesn’t know how to do this; he doesn’t know how to _be_ this. Steve looks at him as though waiting for an answer they both know Bucky has been trying to avoid. Bucky won’t be cornered. He grasps Steve’s forearm and tries to evade that too-bright blue gaze, as clear and hungry and interminably soft as it is.

There’s a half-crumpled, taped-together piece of paper with a half-assed government pardon shoved into the back of a drawer in his room, a bed with sheets twisted and torn from night terrors, and a backpack he keeps filled with the bare essentials—three protein bars, two unopened bottles of water, a map printed in 2004, and a battered red journal with select clippings and one person’s photograph inside—in case he needs to run. These are the things that make up the whole of Bucky Barnes now, which is to say nothing of the _ghosts_ or the gaps in his fucking memory, so when Steve looks at him with those bright blue eyes and that familiar pink mouth, turned slightly down at the corners, and blond hair Bucky aches to run his fingers through—well, Bucky has to grit his teeth and swallow what he wants to say.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter how much Steve loves him or how many lifetimes Bucky would follow him into war; Steve is not a person that Bucky has earned. There aren’t enough governmental pardons in the world that could make him worthy of a man like Steve Rogers.

So Steve brushes his knuckles against Bucky’s jaw, and against his lips, and against the ridge of his nose, and Bucky swallows what feels like a mouthful of glass shards and shakes his head.

It’s an offer he can’t take.

“No, Steve,” he says, quietly.

Steve stops, knuckles pressed to that space just under Bucky’s mouth. He looks—stricken. He looks quietly, universally, devastated.

He hasn’t said anything overtly and now he won’t. Because Steve has never denied Bucky his choice. And because Bucky’s choice is to be a coward.

Steve lets Bucky go, his fingers leaving indentations in Bucky’s skin.

Bucky breaks his own heart, then, in the hopes that one day he won’t have to feel it anymore.

*

  
**art:** Steve caressing Bucky's face and Bucky looking at him sadly; **art by:** nalonzooo

*

By Bucky’s count, there are no less than four hundred and seventy two potential Avengers available to take the stupid fucking world-ending stones back to the times they belong, but of the four hundred and seventy two potential Avengers available, only one is stupid enough to offer.

“Let me go with you,” Bucky says, shaking with a kind of cold fury that sinks under his skin and stays there.

This is time traveling and world-ending magical stones that fuck up universes and turn people into space dust. Steve isn’t a god or a titan. He’s a motherfucking, stupid as fuck human with some science juice that makes him strong and keeps him from freezing to death in the middle of the Atlantic fucking Ocean.

They weren’t meant for missions like this.

Steve, in his stupid white Avengers time suit, shakes his head.

“I need to do this for me,” he says, with a sad smile.

It feels like a blade slipped in between his ribs, the point of the dagger pricking his side and then being unceremoniously shoved in.

Bucky stares at his hands blankly, curling and uncurling his fingers, teeth grit tight to bite down on a despair he can only remember feeling once before—the night before he had left for war, three lifetimes ago.

“Don’t be stupid,” he tries again. _It doesn’t have to mean this_ , he wants to say. _Just because I’m a coward doesn’t mean I want to let you go._

Instead he says, “I’ll always have your six.”

Maybe he can’t say that anymore. Maybe that’s what you give up when you break your best friend’s heart.

“It’ll be okay, Buck,” the stupid fucker says in his stupid, kind, sad fucking voice. Steve looks worn thin, a battle-born son having fought one war too many. His voice is sad, but so are his eyes, and the slopes of his shoulders, and the slightly crooked bridge of his nose, which Bucky doesn’t remember, but knows was broken twice and never fully healed.

Steve has had to live five years in a world he thinks he failed to save and once he had saved it, he had ended up losing everything else in its place. Bucky’s not the only one who can’t sleep at night. He’s stood outside of Steve’s door too, his flesh hand on the doorknob, forehead pressed to the wood, listening as Steve tries and fails to catch the Widow in his nightmares.

“I promise,” Steve says, a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, another hand clasped around a vibranium-enforced briefcase, “it’ll all be okay.”

After everything they’ve both been through, Bucky doesn’t think either of them can promise that with any kind of certainty.

Steve must sense this, because he squeezes Bucky’s shoulder—as though a moment’s reassurance can fix everything that’s broken between them, a lifetime’s worth of Steve reaching for Bucky and Bucky slipping through his grasp.

Maybe a different lifetime. Maybe another Bucky.

“Let me go with you,” Bucky says quietly. He’s not begging, but he comes close, his voice low with a note bordering on desperation. “We can do this together. Steve. Come on.”

Steve leans forward and Bucky’s breath catches in his throat. He closes his eyes. Steve presses a kiss to the crown of his hair and pulls back.

“I’ll just be a minute,” he says. “You’ll see.”

Bucky watches helplessly as Steve takes his stupid fucking briefcase to the middle of the stupid fucking time machine that stupid fucking Lang is operating.

“He’ll be back,” Wilson says at his elbow.

Steve gives Lang and Wilson a smile. Bucky avoids his eyes, as angry as he is, but that doesn’t mean Steve doesn’t find him anyway.

Bucky looks up in time to see Steve give him a sad half-smile.

It’s too late for regrets and _what ifs_ by the time Lang pulls the lever and the contraption shoves Steve back through time, alone.

 _I should have said yes_ , Bucky thinks wildly. _I should have kissed him goodbye._

It’s too little, too late.

  
They wait five seconds, then ten seconds, and Bucky feels each of them, like knives buried in his lungs. He watches the spot where Steve had disappeared, stares at it until there’s a Steve-shaped hole he’s burned into the blank air.

“Barnes,” Wilson calls to him from the side and Bucky wheels around frantically, his heart beating rapidly, his acute sense of fuckery—or what his therapist would call an unhealthy scale of paranoia—blaring in his scrambled egg brain.

Bucky takes a step toward Wilson, toward a bench in between trees by the water.

For a moment, his heart skips, thinking— _hoping_ —he sees a Steve-shaped person sitting there. _He’s alive_ , he thinks, with immense relief. _He’s back_.

The stupid motherfucker came back after all.

But then he actually sees Wilson’s expression. Wilson’s looking back at him, his face stricken too.

Oh.

Bucky sucks in a breath.

There’s nothing there after all.

  
They wait, and they wait.

Scott shuts off the time machine.

*

Steve doesn’t come back.

* * *

**[ guardians ship. 2023. ]**

He’s seen eternity spread out before him, made a home among the stars, more times than he could possibly count in his very long life. It looks different to him now and he wonders, sometimes, if this is how his father had felt. He has two eyes, kind of, where Odin only had one, but sometimes he thinks he sees things only half as well anyway.

He’s spent more of his life in space recently than he has since he lost Asgard and he still hopes, sometimes, that he can find some solace in stardust, an answer to a question he can’t verbalize. The stars hadn’t answered him back then, while on board the Statesman, in between the destruction of Hela and the cataclysm of Thanos, and they don’t answer him now, on a different ship, after all else is said and destroyed.

He asks, in his own way, but space is relentless and the stars speak a language even he can’t understand.

He spends a lot of sleepless nights like this, trying to understand, and, ultimately, failing.

*

The Guardians are more subdued than they were before, but there’s still music coming from Quill’s earbuds and Groot is still playing the same video game he left with five years ago. Thor doesn’t mind sharing this space, but the closeness between them scrapes at a hollow place inside him. The Guardians are a family, but they are not his own.

“Uh, should you maybe take it a little easier?” the racoon asks, eyeing Thor. It’s surprisingly kind, if a little fed up.

Thor shrugs.

“No,” he says and finishes his bottle.

He drinks, because drinking is easier than remembering.

*

One day, in the middle of the stars, Nebula fixes her unnerving, mechanical gaze on him.

“That won’t help you, you know,” she says.

Thor likes her, in a strange way. She, too, is a creature set loose in a story not of her own choosing. Nebula never seems as lonely as Thor feels, but perhaps she simply holds it closer to her chest than he does. He’s never been very good at locking everything away.

“It helps,” Thor insists, his hand around the cold neck of a bottle of beer. It’s no Asgardian quality, but it will do for what he needs.

“You think I haven’t seen my father destroy lives before?” Nebula asks him. She leans against a table in the middle of the dining area, peeling an orange. “It helps only until the last drop. And then you’re back to thinking about all of the things he took from you.”

Thor frowns at that, the cheap beer sliding across his tongue.

“And what would you have me do instead?” he asks.

Nebula snorts and continues peeling the orange. She does it with precision and Thor is momentarily distracted, watching her bright blue fingers against orange.

She finishes and swipes the peels off the table, into the trash.

“Anything else, your highness,” she says in her dry, gravelly voice. “Literally, do anything else.”

Thor frowns and finishes half his bottle in a single gulp. He gets up to his feet and sways. It takes more than a bottle of cheap Midgardian beer to go to Thor’s head. But then, when he looks down at the table, he sees not one empty bottle, but half a dozen of them easy. He hopes they won’t run out of stock.

He doesn’t remember finishing the rest and his head swims anyway. He sweeps all of them into the garbage and sways all the way to his bed.

He collapses onto it, staring at the ship’s ceiling above him.

He’s tired and adrift in a way he never expected to be. Once, he was an arrogant, shining, crowned prince. Then, he was a king. Now, he is nothing.

He falls asleep and has nightmares he won’t be able to shake in the morning.

*

“Another bad night?” Rocket asks when Thor blearily pries his eyes open.

Thor wants to say _they are all bad nights, sweet rabbit,_ but he can’t even manage that.

He drinks beer for breakfast and feels the quiet, careful air around him. The Guardians, usually so blunt and full of humor, fall quiet around him these days.

Nebula gives him a discerning look and a single, raised metal eyebrow.

Thor sighs as the ship comes to life around him.

He truly needs to get a life.

*

“What is home, to you?” Thor asks Nebula one day.

They are sitting across from each other at a table, playing some Midgardian game with their fingers and a metal triangle. The game seems to please her and make her sad simultaneously. Thor can only half read her expression on any given day anyway. Mostly, she looks as though she wants to murder everyone on the ship. It’s an expression he’s familiar with, so it’s soothing in its own way.

“Home,” Nebula says, her voice like scraping gravel.

“Yes,” Thor says. He puts his two fingers together as she instructed and she concentrates with the metal disc.

“I’ve never cared for the concept,” Nebula says.

Thor watches her ready her fingers with a frown.

“Never?” he asks.

“Home is where Thanos was,” Nebula says. “Home is where he would torture me when I displeased him.”

“That’s...awful,” Thor says, feeling horrified.

Nebula shrugs then lines up her fingers.

Thor watches in silence as she flicks it and the metal triangle goes flying through the air, across his fingers.

“I win,” she says suddenly, straightening. “I win!”

“Yes,” Thor nods. “Yes, you won.”

Nebula looks extremely pleased with herself. She retrieves the triangle.

“Again,” she instructs.

Sometimes, she reminds Thor of—he stops before completing the thought. He swallows as he takes the triangle and sets up the game again.

They go through another round and this time Thor wins.

“Oh,” Nebula says, but she doesn’t look displeased.

  
She and Thor split a drink after and look out at the stars.

“This is home for me,” Nebula says quietly, into the dark. “I like it here.”

Thor nods, taking a mouthful. He leans back on his elbows.

“I like it here too,” Thor says. “But it’s not my place.”

“Why not?” Nebula demands.

Thor thinks about that. Eventually, with a mouth full of marbles, he verbalizes it.

“There’s something missing,” he says.

That makes Nebula laugh, for some reason. She shoves Thor’s shoulder.

“Then go find it,” she says, as though it’s as simple as that.

*

Maybe it is, Thor thinks.

Maybe what he’s looking for is out there; not in here.

*

“Where are you going?” Rocket asks.

The Guardians watch Thor as he tries to fit himself into the extra pod.

“To find something that is missing,” Thor says, a smile on his face.

“Well,” Rocket says and scratches his head. “What’s missing?”

“I do not know,” Thor says cheerfully. “But I hope to find it.”

“I am Groot,” the tree says, watching Thor.

“Yes,” Thor agrees. “You are.”

He says goodbye to his companions and launches the pod into deep space.

* * *

**[ earth. 2024. ]**

It’s shitty enough to realize that your best fucking friend in the entire fucking world chose to disappear into the deep recesses of the past without a fucking goodbye, just a cryptic _it’ll all be okay, Buck_ , like that means anything at fucking all, but torture takes on a new meaning when you’re the only one left in the apartment that the two of you had shared, if briefly.

It’s not the empty bedroom or the way that his footsteps seem to echo in a space too large for him. It’s not even buying groceries for one when he’s used to two supersoldier appetites. In the end, it’s being mailed a letter for lease renewal and realizing that his name had been on the papers the entire time.

> _Dear Mr. Buchanan,  
>   
>  As your one year lease expires on the 30th of April, 2024, I have enclosed a contract for lease renewal, with the notice that rent will be increasing $200 to accommodate for rise in property taxes. Your rent has been paid in the full through—_

Bucky shuffles past the letter to the papers underneath, containing a copy of the lease from the previous year and a clean lease for renewal.

> _**Rental Lease Agreement**  
>   
>  This lease (hereinafter referred to as The Lease) is made on this 1st day of May, 2023 (hereinafter referred to as The Effective Date) by and between Steven Grant Rogers, James Buchanan Barnes, and—_

He stares at the names, nearly uncomprehendingly, that familiar name staring up at him, a name he’s seen so many times over the past year it’s become nearly foreign to him, like staring at the same word for so long that it loses all meaning. ( _Where is Captain America?_ in The New York Times and _Captain America Stays in the Past_ by fucking Fox fucking News and _Steve Rogers, 1918-2023_ in the Washington Post, and _Steve Rogers: Missing_ in BuzzFeed mysteries) The names are in a handwriting crystallized in the folds of his one hundred year old amnesiatic brain, Steve’s name written first and Bucky’s name second, their names written together, on this binding document, when Bucky had never known and never been told and the full lease had been paid through the end of the fucking year.

It’s the knowledge that Steve had wanted him to stay, that he had planned for a long-term _something_ with the two of them and left anyway, left him stuck in this miserable time with half-memories and a life that follows in the shadows of Captain fucking America, as though he had chosen that for himself. If he had known he was going to be unceremoniously abandoned by his best fucking friend, he would have taken up something less torturous than agreeing to become the world’s least favorite add-on Avenger, but he had said yes in some misguided attempt to honor Steve—or at least impress him—and now he’s stuck shooting fucking sentient lizards in between their fucking eyes and trying to stop Wilson from getting himself killed instead of building lawn chairs or baking 14 layer cakes or whatever else a formerly brainwashed ex-assassing is suited for in retirement.

Bucky could technically leave their home at any time, as untied and unencumbered as he is, but he stays, because this was the last place he saw Steve and on nights when his terrors light a fire up and down his spine, he still thinks he can hear Steve breathing outside of his door.

It’s stupid sentiment that binds him in place, a sense of deep, unshakeable loyalty that keeps him from moving on, when Steve had looked him in the eyes, lied, and left anyway.

Bucky stares at the lease and at the lease renewal and he’s halfway to setting it on fire in his kitchen sink when he stops and looks again.

 _Dear Mr. Buchanan_ , the lease renewal letter says, although the old lease has both of their names on it.

 _Dear Mr. Buchanan_ , only, as though the landlord knows the truth of it all—about the empty room in Bucky’s apartment, and the extra bowl in the kitchen cabinet, and the missing pair of shoes by the door.

It’s probably an oversight, Bucky thinks, even though he’s never met the man or spoken to a single member of the condominium board.

Bucky holds the paper and stares at his name—solitary, alone, a sentence started and a sentence ended, which is how he came into this century and will, ultimately, leave it.

He shakes his head bitterly and swallows.

He crumples the documents and throws them into the trash can.

*

Things only get stranger from there.

The first time someone calls him Captain America, he thinks it’s some kind of stupid prank. He rolls his eyes at the kid, gives him a shit-eating grin, and finishes buying his three bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, gallon of milk, and discount pack of passion fruit-flavored LaCroix from the bodega down the street.

  
The second time someone calls him Captain America, he figures people are really being stupid, racist pieces of shit. This time he’s less nice about it, glaring at the Brooklyn millennial drinking iced coffee out of a mason jar and her very white boyfriend with the flowers braided into his stupid, ginger beard.

“Hey, shithead,” he says to the guy. “There’s one Captain America and it sure ain’t the white guy with the metal arm and the history of political assassinations.”

He slings an arm around Sam’s shoulder to emphasize his point, his glare intensifying, and the couple look both confused and horrified to be called out on their racism. The year is 20-fucking-24, where it’s worse to be called a racist than it is to actually be a racist piece of shit.

They leave without saying another word and Bucky and Sam continue their brunch date. Bucky sticks an entire poached egg in his mouth and this time, Sam gives him a weird look.

“What?” Bucky says, chewing barely, and swallowing.

“That was a little harsh,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow. He picks up his iced coffee, incidentally also served in a mason jar.

“Pieces of shit,” Bucky growls. “They don’t like a Black Captain America, so they’re just going to make the first white guy they see their hero instead? Hard fucking pass.”

Sam’s confused expression deepens.

“You’re not...black, Barnes,” he says.

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to stare at Sam as though he’s grown a second head.

“Yeah, no shit,” he says. “You are.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Sam replies. However, he says it uncertainly, as though he doesn’t know why he’s saying it at all.

Bucky shrugs and skewers a piece of lox and sticks it in his mouth.

“So why’d you yell at them?” Sam asks, eyebrows knit together.

Bucky finishes his lox and washes it down by straight up draining his mimosa.

“Because they deserved it,” he says and gets up to use the bathroom.

  
The third time someone calls him Captain America, it’s, well, Sam.

“Cap!” Sam screams, in the middle of shooting the underbelly of a toxic fucking alien motherfucking flying slug.

Bucky doesn’t have time to be weirded out while he’s trying not to get doused in radioactive sludge, but he does roll out from behind a tree and shoot the motherfucker straight between the eyes with some enhanced gun that Hill had given him during their last check-in.

It’s after the fucker is dead and the team is catching their breaths, guzzling entire bottles of Gatorade, that Bucky turns to him.

“Wilson,” he says. “What gives?”

Sam, who’s nursing a burn on his forearm, gives him a questioning look.

“Say what?”

“Cap,” Bucky says. “Are you having an identity crisis?”

“Are you?” Sam asks.

Bucky has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about. He crumples his empty plastic bottle and throws it in the trash. Then he says to Sam, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“You take a knock to your head?” Sam says and he sounds genuinely concerned.

“Did you?” Bucky asks. He runs a hand through his sweat-matted, grimy hair. “We had a whole fucking conversation about this, Wilson. I don’t want the shield. It’s yours.”

“What?”

Now Bucky’s starting to get concerned.

“We _talked_ about this,” he says again, staring at Sam. “Steve would have wanted you to have it. Just because he fucked off to who-the-hell-knows-when doesn’t change that.”

Sam looks at Bucky uncomprehendingly.

“Steve...Rogers?” Sam asks.

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to look uncomprehending.

“Why are you saying his name like you’ve never met him?” he asks.

Sam considers Bucky for a moment, like he’s studying him to make sure all of his marbles are still there. That’s fair enough, Bucky supposes, but not when _he’s_ the one making sense and Sam’s the one trying to give him a fucking heart attack.

Sam shakes his head.

“Because...I haven’t,” he says, slowly. He tilts his head and Bucky’s eyes bug out. “Steve Rogers disappeared in 2012, Barnes. Long before I came on board.”

Bucky’s thoughts scramble inside his brain, one colliding into another, a racket so loud and a confusion so deep that it nearly disorients him.

“What?” he says.

“Steve Rogers,” Sam says, shaking his head again. “I never met the guy.”

*

Sam isn’t the only one who claims that Steve never made it past 2012. He asks Barton and Maximoff and Hill and Fury and they all say the same thing: “Barnes, did you get zapped in the face by an alien or magic-wielding sorcerer recently?” followed by “Steve Rogers disappeared in 2012, you’ve been Captain America ever since.”

Nevermind that the timeline of events makes no fucking sense, since in 2012, Bucky still had his brain radio-fried by HYDRA and was killing political targets for a good time, but the most fucked up thing about whatever grand, cosmic joke he’s currently in the middle of is that these people keep looking at him—looking _Bucky Barnes_ straight in the center of his dead, blue-grey eyes—and indicating that someone, at some point, had decided he was capable of—to say nothing of being _worthy of_ —being a golden American hero and icon.

It’s not a particularly funny joke, as far as grand, cosmic jokes go. Bucky has no fucking desire to pick up the mantle of Captain America for a multitude of reasons that not even his SHIELD-assigned therapist will ever come close to hearing, but chief among them is that every time he so much as looks at the shield, he’s reminded of blond hair and blue eyes and a now-forgotten promise that everything would be okay.

It sucks.

Bucky’s heartbroken and lonely and he misses his best friend in the entire fucking world and now he can’t even get drunk on 190 proof whiskey and complain to Wilson about how he misses his best friend in the entire fucking world, because _no one can remember him_.

It’s as though Steve had gone into the ice, reappeared for a year, and then disappeared from the collective memory. Everyone remembers him as he was in their history textbooks, or in the SHIELD files that Romanoff dumped onto the Internet, or, briefly, for the one year he had been woken from the middle of a fucking iceberg, given an apartment and a suit, and just told to become a superhero, nevermind that he had seventy fucking years of the world to catch up on and no one to do it with.

The more Bucky asks, the less the people around him remember.

First, Steve’s a close memory, then he’s a distant one, and then he grows further still, until Steve Rogers is just stats on the back of a superhero baseball card and when Bucky searches on Wikipedia for Captain America, what he gets is a long entry on how he, Bucky Barnes, Captain America, along with Iron Man and Thor, had helped kill Thanos, and saved the world.

Talk about fucked up.

*

It pisses him off, is the thing.

Steve Rogers didn’t fucking shove himself into a radioactive microwave, throw himself into a world fucking war, crash a plane full of nuclear bombs into the middle of the fucking Atlantic fucking Ocean, wake up in the 21st Century, don a superhero suit, fight with a group of reckless, borderline suicidal superheros, save the world from aliens, Tony Stark’s microwave oven alter ego, more aliens, and an ugly, genocidal purple motherfucker—all while suffering from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder from, you know, _missing seventy fucking years of the world_ —to be erased from the public memory.

It’s not right and, furthermore, it’s stupid that Bucky is the only one who has to remember these things. It’s not enough that he has to live with the ghost of Steve in their two bedroom apartment, or the memories of the two of them—growing up, before the war, during the war, after the fucking war, something something a highway knife fight and seven bullets to Steve’s stomach and falling from the sky and into the Potomac and dragging a near lifeless body onto the bank of a river and disappearing for three years, only to be found in a small apartment in Bucharest, his brain a confused, recovering haze and Steve with his suit on, staring at Bucky and begging him to say that he had nothing to do with a terrorist attack on the United fucking Nations—with no one to corroborate them or even share them with. Now he has to carry the other memories too, and adopt a legacy that he never fucking asked for.

This is why Bucky drinks.

“There has to be a better way to deal with this,” Carol Danvers tells him, the next time she’s on the planet.

It’s the middle of June and Bucky is in a tank top with arms that are cut so low that anyone sparing him half a glance can see the scars raised on his sides. Once, he had been shy about this—about his metal arm, about his scars, about his toughened, battered, battle-worn body—but now he’s so tired about everything else that he doesn’t have the energy to also care about how scary he must look.

A very long time ago, this would have horrified him, but that was three Buckys and four lifetimes ago; now it just plays into his advantage. People see how grizzled and hardened he is and look away.

Or, well, they did before everyone started misremembering him as America’s favorite star spangled superhero.

“There isn’t,” Bucky grunts at her.

He has few friends in the post-Thanos world, but he likes Captain Marvel because she’s quiet when he needs her to be and she’s kind of a mouthy little shit and also, she’s almost an alien. Bucky enjoys all of these things about her—especially the alien bit—so when she’s on planet and she rings him up, he doesn’t send her straight to voicemail.

“What is it with superhuman men and drinking away their feelings?” Carol mutters. She, for her part, is wearing a t-shirt and jeans, a brown leather jacket tied about her waist, as though it isn’t 95 fucking degrees outside, with a humidity index of 83%.

“We have feelings,” Bucky says. “So we drink. Do you want something?”

“Just a beer,” Carol replies and Bucky flags down the bartender to refill his own glass and bring Carol whatever’s on tap. “So...how are you?”

“Don’t do that,” Bucky says.

Carol raises an eyebrow, drumming her fingers on the wooden counter.

“Do what?”

“Ask me that question,” Bucky says. “While looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Carol asks, too innocently, and Bucky glares at her.

“Like _that_ ,” he growls. “Who did you talk to?”

Carol makes a noncommittal sound and Bucky drains half of his beer.

“That’s not safe,” Carol says.

“I’m a knock off supersoldier,” Bucky says. “I’ll live. Who did you talk to?”

Carol sighs. She picks a peanut from the bowl of nuts that Bucky ordered and chews on it thoughtfully.

“Sam,” she says.

“Wilson,” Bucky glowers.

“He’s worried about you,” Carol says.

“He doesn’t believe me,” Bucky says. “He thinks I’m losing my mind. What’s left of my mind.”

“Are you?” Carol asks.

Bucky’s interrupted from answering by the bartender, who nods at Carol and slides over her glass of beer.

“Thanks,” she says.

“Maybe,” Bucky says, with a shrug. Then, with an actual frown, “Actually, no.”

Carol hums and takes a mouthful of beer.

“I’m not crazy, Danvers,” he says. “I know...what I know. I remember what I remember.”

“You were brainwashed, weren’t you?” Carol asks. “HYDRA and all.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, his eyebrows knitting together.

“Could it be something from there?” she asks. “Something they put in, extra. Maybe it got triggered by one of the aliens you guys are always fighting. Or PTSD. Have you tried hypnosis?”

“I’m not going to hypnotize myself into forgetting my best friend,” Bucky mutters. He takes a mouthful of his drink too. “Nothing makes sense. The things...everyone remembers. This timeline. I was the Winter fucking Soldier. There was that whole airport fight with the Avengers and Siberia…Zemo, does no one remember that asshole?”

“All of those things happened,” Carol agrees.

“How could I have been Captain America and had that fight in the parking lot. And then the whole—Wakanda thing. Shuri and deprogramming me. How could I have been Captain America _and_ the Winter Soldier and done all of those things?” he demands.

Carol puts her glass down and turns on her stool. Bucky doesn’t like that.

When she looks at him, her expression is partially thoughtful and partially careful, the way people are when they think they’re dealing with a crazy person. People are well-meaning assholes and Bucky’s haunches are already raised.

“You were the Winter Soldier,” Carol says. “From what I understand, you were turned from HYDRA during that whole incident with Romanoff and the files and the Triskellion. You became Captain America, but you still had those trigger words. So you handed yourself over to Wakanda after the incident in Siberia and King T’Challa’s sister did science on you. Now you’re here, Captain America, good as new. Except everything you’ve told me over the last fifteen minutes. That’s concerning.”

Bucky glares at his glass and rubs his palm against his forehead.

“It’s not true,” he says. “The things you said—your version of events. It’s wrong, Danvers. I don’t know why it’s wrong or how it got so wrong, but it’s fucking _wrong_.”

Carol says nothing to that, so Bucky drains the rest of his beer and slams the glass down on the counter.

She sighs.

“Okay,” she says.

That makes Bucky pause.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay,” she repeats herself, nodding. “I believe you.”

Bucky frowns, feeling unsteady, because it couldn’t possibly be this easy—not after how weird everything’s gotten.

“You do?”

“I believe that you think something’s wrong,” she says.

Bucky scowls at that. He’s about to snap back at her, when she raises both of her hands.

“But, you’re not the only one.”

He doesn’t know what to make of that.

“What?” he says. “Who else?”

Carol shakes her head and then—although she had _just_ scolded Bucky about this—she drains her entire glass of beer too.

“I know someone else who’s remembering things no one else is,” she says. “He’s taking this about as well as you are.

“Who, Danvers?” Bucky asks. He curls his metal fingers into the edge of the bar and accidentally crushes it into wooden splinters. “Where?”

Carol gives Bucky a wry, half-smile and stands.

“How do you feel about going to space?” she asks.

*

  
**  
art:** Carol Danvers and Bucky Barnes, at a bar, talking; **art by:** cyclamental

  
* * *


	2. Chapter Two. [ no oddity ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, he’s on Vanaheim, working his way through memories he must have dreamed of his friends, the Warriors Three—long dead—when a beam of light falls on him from above.
> 
> Startled, Thor looks up. 
> 
> There, in the middle of the sky, is a small airpod and inside the airpod, is a smiling, bemused Carol Danvers. Next to her is someone Thor has not seen or thought of for a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh thank you all so much for your sweet comments and excitement! We're about to get a little Topsy Turvy.

**[ alfheim. 2024. ]**

He spends a year searching through the Nine Realms for a purpose. It’s him, in his small space pod, crunching mindlessly through space and stopping at planets when he runs out of fuel or grows hungrier for more than what snacks he picked up at the last village. It grows blurrier in his head—his reason for leaving New Asgard, his impulse to part ways from the Guardians. He was never meant to wander the galaxies by himself and he spends his nights, in space and elsewhere, talking to ghosts who have left him long before.

“Do not look at me like that, old friend,” Thor admonishes Heimdall.

He pulls into a planet between where Xandar used to be and where Morag still stands, so full of self-loathing and beer that he can barely sit straight. He stops at an inn, where the locals watch him with suspicion and he nods to them pleasantly while sitting down with a bowl of something a little like porridge.

Across from him, Heimdall’s golden eyes watch in disapproval.

“I am finding my way still,” Thor says to Heimdall.

Around him, eyes are now flitting toward the strange man with the long, braided beard and the sweater that should have been thrown out at least a year ago.

“Well you are not exactly in a position to talk yourself,” Thor says through a spoonful of porridge. “Being, you know—dead and all.”

Heimdall sighs and moves his mouth. Thor is not so lost as to hear his voice, although he aches to do so. Here, past the world’s end, Thor could use friendly and wise counsel from his old friend.

He swallows more porridge and picks up his tankard of ale.

“This is to help wash it down,” Thor tells Heimdall when he senses the older man’s golden eyes narrow. “I never knew you to be so judgmental.”

That is, perhaps, not true. _He may not say anything, brother, but he sees everything_ , Loki had told him once. _It is always the quietest who harbor the sharpest tongues._

Thor had laughed at Loki then and he laughs at the memory of Loki now.

“I suppose he was right, though I know you do not like to hear it,” he says jovially to ghost Heimdall. “Anyway, I am fine. I am perfectly, just, very fine.”

Heimdall dissipates as someone steps into the place where he had been sitting.

Thor frowns.

“My friend was sitting there,” he says.

“You’re scarin’ the patrons,” the orange-eyed owner of the inn says. “I’m goin’ to have to ask you to leave.”

Thor looks down sadly into his bowl.

“Can I finish my meal?” he says.

The owner does not seem particularly happy about the prospect, but maybe he takes sympathy to Thor. He supposes he does look rather pathetic, altogether.

“Finish,” the owner says, nodding. “Then leave.”

“In that case,” Thor says, looking up at him, brightly—or as brightly as he allows. “Could I have another ale, to go?”

*

He thinks if he wanders aimlessly, stopping to talk to locals and helping where he can, he might find some purpose in exploration, or at least in living. It doesn’t take long for the loneliness to begin gnawing at him, but it takes him too long to admit it.

He goes to sleep—in his pod or at an inn or in a spare room at whatever tavern he stops by—usually alone, and even when he finds someone to accompany him, it doesn’t ease the ache in his chest.

No matter where he goes, it’s only him, and no matter where he goes, he never forgets this.

*

There is a village on Alfheim that he has taken a liking to. There’s a tavern in particular where the ale is good and no one asks questions they do not want the answer to. He has come by way of here a handful of times in the past year and has only found himself the subject of unwanted attention once. The tavernkeep is a nice Alfheimian with a shock of bright blue hair and skin the color of grass in the spring. They take a liking to Thor, or perhaps it’s pity, but in any case, they greet him with a warm smile and a tank of ale each time Thor stumbles in through the door.

He has a place at the far end of the bar he sits at, long past when it’s appropriate, drinking himself into a stupor and every once in a while lifting his head to laugh at something someone else has said.

Thor has hated himself for years now; what is another?

  
It is on one of these evenings, well into drink and a river of memories he only approaches when he’s on the shores of being drunk, that he feels a hand on his shoulder.

Thor, unused to attention by now, ignores the touch at first. He takes another deep draught from his glass and then frowns blearily when someone takes a seat next to him.

“You don’t mind company, do you?”

Thor waves away the person and returns to his drink. He sits silently, drinking his ale and remembering, until he gets to the bottom of his glass. He raises a hand to motion for another, when the person next to him interrupts his thoughts again.

“Let me,” she says.

Frowning, Thor finally turns toward his companion.

Carol Danvers smiles at him.

  
It’s the first familiar, friendly face Thor has seen in a year.

“Captain,” Thor says heartily, wrapping Carol in a hug that goes all the way around. Her bony elbows dig into his soft stomach.

Carol laughs and returns the hug warmly, patting Thor on the back before extricating herself from his grip.

“Your highness,” she says, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes, but Thor shakes his head.

“Not any longer,” he says. “That title belongs to someone else now. Now, I am just Thor.”

“All right, just Thor,” Carol says. She flags the barkeep down for fresh drinks. “In that case, I am just Carol.”

Thor gives her as warm a smile as he can muster, in his current state.

“What are you doing here on Alfheim?” he asks. “I thought you back on Midgard, or elsewhere in the Nine Realms, helping others.”

“I was,” Carol says. “And I am. Or, I was. But now, I’m here.”

“Very mysterious,” Thor says and is rewarded with a chuckle.

“What about you?” Carol asks. She leans her arms against the bar, the red and blue of her suit standing out against the dark grain of the wood. “I thought you were in New Asgard. I suppose I also thought you were still king.”

Thor’s smile is a little smaller this time, a little more brittle along the edges. He looks down at his empty glass and finds his head is empty too. It’s almost a blessing.

“No,” he says, slowly. “No, that was a long time ago. Now I am here, on Alfheim. Drinking.”

“Hm,” Carol says. “I see.”

Thor lapses into the kind of uncomfortable, borderline morose silence that he’s now grown used to. Once, he thinks, he had been full of life and laughter—he had been a golden prince and, then briefly, a golden king. Well, charisma always was a shield for him, in ways that his brother had always resented and often cruelly mocked. Well, perhaps not mocked. _Where would you be without your easy ability to make others love you, brother?_ Loki had asked once, when they had been young and cruel and fighting. Thor doesn’t remember exactly what he had said in reply, but if he had to guess, he’s certain it was something like, _It is not a skill you would understand, brother, being unable to make anyone love you as you are._

It had been the exact barbed, needlessly vicious response that he and Loki had often exchanged and that had, eventually, broken the two of them neatly in half. Well, the joke was on him anyway, because Loki was now dead and Thor all alone, without any sort of ability at all, let alone an easy one to make anyone love him.

It’s to his now rare good fortune that the barkeep brings two fresh glasses of ale and saves him from explaining himself.

“Well, I guess that makes two of us,” Carol says. Thor raises an eyebrow and she smiles and tilts her glass toward him. “To old friends, on Alfheim. Drinking.”

Thor lets out a relieved breath and this time when he smiles, it almost reaches his eyes.

“To old friends,” he says and then, blessedly, drinks.

  
They spend some time in the low, warm glow of camaraderie that drinking together with someone in a bar will bring. They are two beings drifting through space for different reasons and although Carol’s is undoubtedly more noble than Thor’s, it does not make her any less interested in catching up. They exchange what news they have—Carol tells Thor how Midgard was the last she left, about the Avengers and how they are adapting to a post-Thanos world, and how all of the different parts of the galaxy are likewise handling this, the Great Reconstruction after the Great Snap. Thor doesn’t have much to say in return, but he musters just enough enthusiasm to tell her about the Guardians, about how they rocket through space together, looking for clues on how to save Gamora, now that they’ve lost the first version and don’t know how to find the second.

“It seems like everyone is looking for someone, now,” Carol says. She traces the rim of her glass and has the kind of faraway look in her eyes that Thor almost recognizes. “Or something.”

It cuts too close to something Thor is loath to put a name to. He’s survived this long without looking at his heartbreak too closely and he certainly will not be starting now.

“I hope they find it,” Thor says, sagely. “Her, I mean. It would be a shame to lose her a second time, when they felt the pain of losing her the first.”

Carol looks up at Thor then, an expression so uncomfortably astute that he suddenly feels the way he did whenever Valkyrie would look at him or when Steve Rogers would knock on his door in New Asgard and ask to come inside.

“You would know something about that, wouldn’t you?” she asks, quietly.

Well that’s none of her business, anyway. Thor has lost everyone who has ever meant something to him and sometimes two, three times, when the first time wouldn’t stick. If he wants to deal with that by drinking, a half-Kree who has long since abandoned her home planet wasn’t going to be the person to judge.

“Thank you for the drink,” Thor says politely. His isn’t finished, but even the dulling effects of alcohol aren’t enough to entice him to stay for this conversation. “I should be going.”

“Thor, wait—” Carol says, but he’s already standing. “I’m sorry, I know it’s a tough subject. It must still be hard, after all of these years.”

Thor curls his large hands into fists. His heart beats erratically in his chest, a distant sound in his ears, like the waves of the ocean pressing against his ear drums.

“I must be going—”

“I can’t imagine,” Carol says, looking Thor in the eyes, “what it must have been like, for him to have disappeared like that.”

Thor shakes his head and takes a step back. He bumps into the stool behind him; it scrapes loudly against the wood of the floor. He grasps the edge of the bar to keep from stumbling over.

It’s only then, when his head is spinning and he’s trying to regain his sense of balance, that he hears what she’s said. He frowns in confusion.

“Disappeared? Who has disappeared?”

Carol is the one who frowns this time.

“Your brother,” she says. “Loki. Isn’t that who we were talking about?”

“Loki,” Thor says slowly, the name rough and clumsy on his tongue. “Loki is—he is dead. Thanos—killed him. He strangled him, before my eyes.”

Carol’s confusion deepens.

“Thanos?” she says. “How could Thanos have killed him, when he’d already been gone for so long?”

Thor hears a strange tinny sound in the back of his head.

“What?” he asks.

Carol looks at him closely, carefully, as though assessing whether he might be a danger—not to her, but to himself.

“Loki...disappeared in 2012, Thor,” she says, slowly. “No one has seen him since.”

*

**[ vanaheim. 2024. ]**

He does not see Carol Danvers again for many years. Or, at least, that’s what it feels like. In truth, the days take on much of the same quality, an elastic sense of time that he can neither adjust to nor truly rid himself of. Minutes add up to hours, which take on the same quality of days, and day and weeks are the same concept, but by different words.

He stays in the village in Alfheim until he grows old, his bones creaking as he carries the weight of his body in through the front door and then again at night, when he carries himself back out. In truth, barely any time passes, but it does not feel that way to him and soon Thor is lost in an unyielding and brambled miasma of half-memories and half-thoughts, each as miserable as the last.

He is depressed.

In truth, he does not see Carol Danvers again for six months. By then he has left his village on Alfheim and made his way across the galaxy toward Vanaheim. His friend used to live here—the realm of Hogun and his people—but it has been many years since he lost Hogun to his murderous sister. It’s funny because the destruction of Asgard should have been the pinnacle of his pain—the unbearable peak of his grief—but of course the Fates had not thought to save Thor from an even worse reckoning. They had not killed him, but they had not left him particularly whole, either. He doesn’t know whether that’s better or worse. Well, maybe that’s not so funny after all.

Anyway, he’s on Vanaheim, working his way through memories he must have dreamed of his friends, the Warriors Three—long dead—when a beam of light falls on him from above.

Startled, Thor looks up.

There, in the middle of the sky, is a small airpod and inside the airpod, is a smiling, bemused Carol Danvers. Next to her is someone Thor has not seen or thought of for a very long time.

  
Hogun’s village does not blame the former King of Asgard for the death of their own, but nor does it readily forgive Thor his father’s mistakes. Mostly, the Vanir leave him alone, while Thor wanders the woods near where his friend grew up and tries to pay his debt to them by helping a woman who could only be Hogun’s grandmother tend to the plot of land behind her hut.

Thor smiles at the old woman now, saying a word of thanks to her in Vanir, before leading Bucky Barnes inside the small, but well-kept home. Hogun’s grandmother speaks very little, but she lets Thor stay in the extra room in the back and in exchange, he does work around the cottage, helping her plant and tend to her crops, and makes the fifteen minute walk into the village proper for what supplies they need to make it through the week.

He has lived like this with her for the past two months. It’s a listless, directionless liminal pocket of time, but it’s the most productive he’s been in a year and a half. Importantly, she does not stop him from drinking and, in exchange, he is never drunk in front of her.

“This is where you live now?” Bucky Barnes asks, cautiously. He ducks his head to avoid the low hanging of the wooden doorframe. He looks around the room both with burning curiosity and wary caution. Thor thinks, this must be his first time in space.

“For now,” Thor says. “This is where I stay.”

He wants to offer Bucky Barnes tea or some kind of snack, but he has never had to be host and he does not know how to start now, in someone else’s home. Instead, he shuffles his way to the fridge and emerges with two cool bottles of ale.

“A drink?” he asks.

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky says. He looks up at Thor and Thor ignores the scrutiny of that gaze, the way Bucky watches him carefully, as though comparing the Thor he sees now to the Thor he knew then, although Bucky had never really known Thor then and Thor does not know him now.

What Thor knows about the young man is what the Captain had told him and Steve Rogers had never been very forthcoming.

“What brings you here?” Thor asks, attempting some cheer. He groans slightly and takes a seat at the small wooden table across from Bucky. His bottle is open and he lifts it to his mouth as he meets Bucky’s gaze. “How is the Captain?”

For some reason, Bucky Barnes doesn’t answer the question immediately. Instead, he lifts his own bottle to his mouth and drinks.

Thor’s expression dims, his eyebrows knitting together.

“Is he all right?” he asks. “Is something the matter with Steve Rogers?”

Bucky puts the bottle down and exhales. When he does, it’s as though a weight is lifted from his shoulders. It’s a visible thing; Thor can see his shoulders lower from where they had been hovering near his ears.

“So you remember him?” Bucky Barnes asks. “You remember...everything?”

Thor’s frown deepens.

“Of course I remember him,” he says. “Should I not? What’s going on?”

Bucky shakes his head, his metal plates whirring in the silence.

“That makes...two of us,” Bucky says. “In the entire universe.”

Thor doesn’t really understand.

“That’s why I’m here,” Bucky says. “No one else seems to remember what the fuck happened after Thanos. Everyone thinks Steve disappeared in 2012.”

2012\. The year jogs something in Thor’s memory—a conversation, some confusion, Carol Danvers looking at him in a dark tavern on Alfheim with pity in her eyes.

“2012,” Thor says, slowly. “That is what Carol Danvers said too. That Loki disappeared that year.”

“But he didn’t,” Bucky says.

Thor feels an unbelievable shot of relief, like nerves untangling from inside his chest.

“No,” Thor says. “He didn’t.”

“Neither did Steve,” Bucky says. The other man looks thoughtful and, again, cautious. Thor doesn’t know Bucky Barnes at all, but he doesn’t strike him as a particularly cautious man. No one who was so close to Steve Rogers could have been.

“There is something you know,” Thor says, carefully. “Something you aren’t telling me.”

Bucky picks his ale up again. This time, he doesn’t speak until he’s drained the bottle empty.

“Steve took the stones back,” Bucky says. “He was supposed to come back after, but he didn’t. I think something happened, in the past. And I think your brother was involved.”

*

Thor doesn’t mean to overstay his welcome, but he doesn’t mean to leave Hogun’s grandmother behind with nothing either. So he tells Bucky that he can come with him to the field, but only if he helps harvest the rest of the crops. Between the two of them, they bring in everything they can and then they make the 15 minute hike to the village and carry back enough supplies between the two of them that the old Vanir woman’s face crinkles in astonishment.

“Thank you,” Thor says to her. “For everything.”

Hogun’s grandmother has his old friend’s eyes, his quiet fortitude, and, most of all, his kindness. She holds Thor’s face firmly in between her wrinkled hands and kisses his forehead.

“You will find your way,” she says.

Thor hadn’t realized he had been so lost. He takes a step back and she smiles.

She sends them with tea and a basket of homemade dumplings.

  
He and Bucky pack into his airpod. It’s a tight fit, but there’s just enough room for Thor to be sitting at the controls and for Bucky to be squeezed in next to him.

“Where to?” Bucky asks. With wide-eyed curiosity, he leans forward to take a closer look at all of the buttons and panels.

Thor programs in the coordinates and pushes the lever that thrusts the airpod off from the ground.

“Midgard,” Thor says. “I am taking you home.”

  
In the end, it does not matter to Thor where Steve Rogers is or where a brother from his past might end up. It does not change what happened and it does not change what he had failed to do. Bucky Barnes looks up at him with cautious, blue eyes in the dim light of Hogun’s grandmother’s home and he might be an enhanced Midgardian, but he is a Midgardian all the same. He is as simple to read as the Midgardians around him. He is cautious, but he is hopeful. He has come to Thor because he thinks Thor will care. He has come to Thor because he thinks Thor will do something, but that is his mistake.

Thor has long since stopped doing anything.

He can barely be held responsible for himself, let alone carry the hopes of someone else.

So Thor nods at Bucky Barnes and tells him he understands. He lies. Bucky Barnes comes alive then, with a tenacity so strong, he could only have adopted it from one other person Thor has ever met. He tells Thor that whatever is happening in the past is affecting the present. He tells Thor that there has to be something they can do. He tells Thor they need to go back for Steve Rogers and Loki.

But Thor has already done that once, chased his brother through multiple lifetimes and gone back in time and it had barely changed anything. Asgard is still dead, his family gone, and his happiness with it.

He is loath to do it again, to the same results.

He is depressed, not stupid.

So he gives Bucky Barnes a smile that does not reach his eyes and makes his decision. He will take him back to Midgard and he will leave him there and they will forget this happened. And if they forget Steve Rogers and Loki in the process, then that is the price of a world after Thanos.

* * *

**[ space. 2024. ]**

When Captain Marvel had asked him if he wanted to go to space, Bucky hadn’t realized she was going to leave him with a depressed Norse God who was about as bad of a liar as the stupid blond asshole Bucky was going to find and kill. He doesn’t know Thor well enough to analyze the whys and whats of the sluggish, sad, borderline alcoholic who sits in front of him on a wooden chair and tries to lie, but he has lived with his own foggy, charcoal grey mind for long enough to recognize depressive behavior in someone else.

It’s because of this that he’s not willing to let this go.

“We’re going back to Earth,” Bucky says, strapped into the seat next to Thor. “Why?”

Thor pushes some brightly lit buttons and pulls a lever to the left of him and the airpod tilts up 45 degrees and thrusts them off of Vanaheim and into the indiscernible black of space.

“That is where they disappeared,” Thor says. “That is where we will find the...proper clues.”

Bucky is distracted for a moment as the dark envelopes the ship, a black so deep that it nearly hurts his eyes to adjust to the lack of color swallowing them and the bright light of the controls in front. The contrast makes it difficult to see, but he rattles in a breath and by the time he exhales, he’s hit by the vast, incomprehensible magnitude of everything around them.

He’s reminded, distantly, of a science show wreathed in bright lights, hovering cars at the front of a crowd, and the feeling of impossibility crawling up the back of his neck. There’s a knot of awe caught in the base of his throat and the press of wonder against his breastbone, optimism flaring painfully bright, the possibilities endless, fine blond hair and bright blue eyes, and a hand with long, thin fingers that slides out of his grasp.

Bucky has never been to space before, but he has felt this unparalleled sense of reverence, once, like a dream unfolded around him.

It would be so fucking cool if the reason he was actually traveling through space at breakneck speed was because he and his Norse God pal were on an intergalactic planetary road trip and not because they were the only two people left in the entire fucking universe with the correct memories of the correct people at the correct times.

Bucky watches, mesmerized, as the distant lights of stars streak by outside, some glowing from lightyears away and some passing by at a closer, but still incomprehensible distance, each of them a tiny, bright pinprick that brings light in the dark.

He lets out a breath and leans his head back against the headrest.

“You’re a shitty liar,” he says.

“Excuse me?” Thor says.

“You heard me,” Bucky says and this time he turns toward the Asgardian. “If you’re going to blow me off, at least put some some effort into it.”

“I’m not—” Thor begins and Bucky cuts him off.

“We’re in space,” Bucky says. “You’re a fucking God. What are we going to find on Earth that you can’t find out here?”

“The stones are—”

“With Steve somewhere,” Bucky says. “Back in time. Fuck knows where. No one on Earth remembers anything the right way, you think dropping me off at SHIELD headquarters is going to get them back?”

“I don’t know how to help you, Bucky Barnes,” Thor says, quietly. “I do not know anything. I do not know where to begin. I am not who I was—”

“Bucky, first of all,” Bucky says. “Don’t be weird.”

Thor frowns.

“Second of all,” Bucky continues, but now he’s a little quieter. “You’re the only shot I have left.”

Thor turns his head toward Bucky and Bucky sighs and runs his fingers through his hair.

“No one else remembers them,” he says. “It’s you and me and a bunch of people who won’t say shit to our faces, but will wonder if we’ve finally cracked behind our backs. Do you know how hard it is to have people take you seriously when you’re an ex-brainwashed assassin who’s already had to have programming taken out of his head? I have seventy years of amnesia and trigger words that I needed a teenager to deactivate. If I go to Fury and tell him Steve never disappeared, that he took some fucking time stones back and got lost in the...time stream or whatever, he’s going to throw me into an underwater jail for crazy people.”

“You aren’t—”

Bucky points to his head and makes a little circle motion, which he can do to himself because he has to live with his own fucked up brain and having the self awareness to casually make fun of himself is, as his therapist tells him, a sign that he was dealing with his situation. Or whatever.

“Anyway, who’s left who’s going to know how to answer any of this shit?” Bucky says, turning to look at Thor. “Stark’s dead and no offense to Banner, but his range is in a different field. He doesn’t have the whole mad scientist thing going on.”

“I am not a mad scientist either Bucky B—” Thor stops himself at the look Bucky gives him.

Bucky shakes his head.

“No. But you’re...an alien. A God. And that has to count for something.”

“It doesn’t,” Thor says. “Not anymore.”

Bucky sighs and tilts his head back until it’s pressed against the headrest again. In truth, he had never gotten the chance to know Thor. Before Thanos, the Norse God was off-planet and during Thanos, Bucky was space dust, and after Thanos, there had been rebuilding and Thor had taken off into space after a funeral that Bucky can only now half-remember. All he knows about the Norse God superhero are the stories that Steve had told him and a two-part CNN special the network had aired on all of The Avengers after the snap. Those had prepared him for a golden, otherworldly creature, half made of myth and half made of magic, who was larger than the human experience and older than much of it too. The Thor he had come to expect was happy and strong and noble and self-assured.

He’s in an airpod with someone else entirely; a depressed, collapsed version of an alien dream who is virtually a stranger, bonded to Bucky only by the thinnest of threads and a strange set of circumstances that has Bucky questioning whether HYDRA really had fucked his memory up beyond all reason.

He doesn’t know what happened to Thor in between point A and point B and he’s not equipped to help him work through that. All he knows is that Steve is gone—he’s _gone_ —and if there is half a chance that he hadn’t left on purpose, Bucky has to take that to bring him back.

So what the fuck is he supposed to do, hurtling through space, when his only plan hinges on a person who believes him, but doesn’t otherwise care?

“Your brother,” Bucky says, quietly.

Next to him, Thor stiffens.

“What about him?” he asks.

“He’s alive,” Bucky says. “In 2012. If we find Steve, then maybe—”

“No,” Thor says, almost violently. His conviction, so haphazard before, catches Bucky by surprise. “Don’t.”

“What?”

“Loki is dead,” Thor says, through grit teeth. His bright blue eyes are looking at the dark of space before them, his fingers curve over the dash so painfully that his knuckles turn white. “He died. I saw him die before my eyes.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I do not care,” Thor says. “He died, do you understand? My brother died and I could do nothing. My best friend died and I could do nothing. We defeated Thanos and it still did not bring them back. It did not bring back my father or my mother. It did not bring back Asgard. It does not matter.”

Thor’s chest heaves a little, his fists white, his expression just distant enough that Bucky understands, all at once, the precipice he’s on. He’s been there too, that grey space between where he is and where he’s gone; his mind cut free and his body left behind. Bucky touches Thor carefully, gently, just a hand to the other man’s elbow and for a moment he thinks it will have come too late, that Thor will have dissociated entirely. He’s so still.

But then Thor takes a shaky breath and with a shudder, comes back into himself. He turns toward Bucky and his expression is sadder than Bucky could have imagined.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Bucky swallows and shakes his head. He’s not the only person who’s been left behind, he thinks. He’s just the only one who has had nothing for so long that now, he has nothing left to lose by chasing it.

“No,” Bucky says. “I’m sorry.”

They drift through space in silence.

  
**art:** Thor and Bucky in the airpod, at an impasse; **art by:** nalonzooo

“I don’t know what to do now,” Bucky admits, a few hours or a few days later.

Space, as it turns out, is as endless and difficult to travel through as it is cool as fuck to conceptualize. The darkness and silence coats their small ship, a perfect pocket of stillness in the deep, boundless infinity around them. It’s enough to force fissures in the strongest of minds, a few hours of existential dread followed by the knowledge that everything is small in comparison to this—to the enormity of the universe, to space.

Bucky, personally, is caught between awe and the crushing weight of existential doom. Luckily, he’s spent so much of the last eighty-odd years battling the latter that he’s left mostly with awe. Still, it’s making him a little antsy to sit here in a quiet that never seems to end.

“Someone else can help you,” Thor says, unhelpfully. “Banner or Strange or...Wanda—she’s a witch. She is still very strong.”

“You could help me,” Bucky says. “You’re literally an alien.”

“I am very busy,” Thor says and presses some button on the control panel. They skirt around some grey space debris. Bucky watches the mass of rock pass, feet away from them, in bemusement.

“Doing what?” Bucky asks.

“Drinking,” Thor says. “There is much left to be drunk, it is a very important task. A noble one. I will drop you off at Midgard and then I will find another planet to go drink on, it’s a very tight schedule.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and leans his forehead against the glass closest to him.

“If I ever find Steve,” Bucky says out loud. “I’m going to kill him. All of his friends are useless. He couldn’t have befriended a single person who isn’t completely difficult to work with? I should have stayed in the cryochamber.”

“You sound like you need a drink too,” Thor says, wisely. He reaches out blindly and ends up patting Bucky on the ear.

“It is decided. When we get to Midgard, you may have a drink with me. _Then_ , after, I will leave you there and go find another planet to drink on.”

Bucky groans and, with little enthusiasm and a lot more dejected spirit, stares out of the ship and into the interminable chasm of space.

  
After hours of drifting along the same stretch of continuous, changeless ink black, seeming to go nowhere and not get any closer to anywhere for their efforts, it’s not difficult to tell when something feels wrong.

Or, in this case, when something finally feels _different_.

“What is that?” Bucky asks, sitting suddenly straight in his seat.

“What?” Thor says.

“That,” Bucky says, urgently. He’s not sure for a moment if what he sees is different or if he’s finally going mad, hallucinating an oasis in the middle of space. It’s not out of the question, so he doesn’t answer immediately, frowning instead.

It twinkles at him.

Bucky hisses and grabs Thor’s arm, his metal fingers closing over the soft flesh painfully.

“Ouch! I am not going to fall for that—” Thor starts, but Bucky just hits him in the shoulder.

“ _Shut up_!” he hisses. “I mean _that_.”

“What—” Thor says, just as Bucky shouts “ _Fuck! Watch out!_ ” and they suddenly slam into it—a wave of cool blue and bright, light purple swirling in the space around them.

“ _That! _”__ Bucky says as Thor shouts, scrambling for the controls.

It happens before they can catch their breaths—their airpod dragging violently through space gravel, a patch of space so unexpectedly jagged and rough that their ship rocks through a turbulence that makes Bucky’s heart rate spike and his teeth clatter together.

“Is this normal?” Bucky shouts, with a gasp. His brain feels like it’s rattling around in his skull. “I’m no expert on space, but—!”

“Shut up!” Thor yells back and Bucky braces both hands against the dashboard to keep from slamming into the glass.

_“ _Fuck!_ ” _

Thor tries to shove on levers and press buttons, but the whole interior of the ship lights up bright red, like a giant, flashing emergency sign and the way he shouts doesn’t inspire Bucky with confidence any more than the vibrating walls of the air pod do. Sirens go off, loud and blaring in his ears.

“Fuck! It isn’t working!” Thor shouts. “It’s short-circuiting!”

“What?” Bucky yells back.

“ _The ship!_ ” Thor yells, over the ruckus. “It won’t work—I can’t control it! We’re going to—!”

What Thor says Bucky doesn’t quite catch and it must be beside the point anyway because there’s a loud, unbearable, heart-rending screeching sound around them, as though the sides of the ship are being scraped across space rocks. Bucky clutches his head to stop the sound from tearing through his skull, but it only grows louder and louder, the sound ripping through the air, making every surface—of the ship, of their skin—vibrate, their hairs standing up on ends, Bucky’s eyeballs hurting with it.

“ _Thor!_ ” Bucky yells, although no one can hear anything; he can’t even hear himself. “Thor!”

The ship swings steeply into the swirl of blue-purple and then, without any warning, with Thor and Bucky both shouting and scrabbling to catch themselves on the inside of their small ship, the whole thing careens forward and falls through space.

  
**art:** Thor and Bucky running into the Tesseract-created wormhole in space; **art by:** nalonzooo

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THAT LAST ART!!!!!! Nalonzooo was like how can I make the coolest glitching wormhole fanart created and then like, really went for it.


	3. Chapter Three. [ first oddity: world war ii ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is all fucked up.
> 
> “I think I know where we are,” Bucky says slowly, trying to swallow past a slight spike in nausea. 
> 
> He looks back down at his left arm and bends it at the elbow. Bucky shakes his head to try to dislodge the feeling—deja vu or disorientation, whatever you want to call it. 
> 
> “Or, at least...when.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME TO THE FIRST ODDITY: THE WAR. 
> 
> Please enjoy your stay. :)

* * *

Bucky wakes up slowly. Consciousness filters in like tiny pricks against his fingers, a thousand points pressing into his skin, gently at first and then sharper and sharper until he gasps and shoves himself up on both of his hands.

The disorientation is acute, like the shattering pain of blunt force trauma to the head, his mind processing his reality one moment and the next tilting sideways, readjusting that reality as though it is not his own at all. It’s hard to explain. Bucky reaches up to touch his temple and his disorientation sharpens, his stomach roiling as the ground seems to pitch beneath him.

Bucky hasn’t thrown up since 19-goddamn-73, but he remembers the warning signs, so he crawls over to the side, doubles over, and dry heaves, as though his body is trying to reject some foreign object meaning to invade. He doesn’t actually throw up, but the motion helps, somehow, and when he sits back on his heels again, the extreme dizziness abates enough for his eyes to adjust to the actual reality around him.

It doesn’t help.

“What the fuck?” Bucky says out loud, as sunlight makes the familiar army tent glow from the outside in.

Across from him, in the small space, he hears a gutted groan.

Bucky looks up just in time for Thor to groan again, roll off the side of his cot, and not have the same kind of luck that Bucky had a moment before.

“Jesus fuck,” Bucky says, pushing himself up to his feet. He looks around the tent at the two cots and the two knapsacks off to the side. “Where the fuck are we?”

There are noises outside—drifting voices and light laughter and the somewhat familiar sound of boots on hard dirt, like a distant memory muffled through a cotton pillow. Bucky frowns, trying to place it—the noise, the familiarity—but the sounds come and go and behind him, Thor retches.

Bucky reaches forward to touch the front of the tent, the canvas smooth under his fingertips. There’s the familiar tie and he nearly undoes it unthinkingly, against his better judgement, when Thor finishes and then groans again.

“Where is the ship?” is the first thing Thor asks.

Bucky retracts his hand and then, as though in a daze, turns his head back toward Thor. He opens his mouth to say something, but that’s when Thor’s eyes widen and he takes in a sharp breath.

“Bucky Barnes,” Thor says, voice shocked and low. “What happened to your arm?”

“What did I tell you about my n—” Bucky starts and then stops as Thor’s question digs into his brain.

He frowns.

“What?” he says, and looks down.

**art:** Bucky looking down at his two flesh hands in surprise; **art by:** nalonzooo

Thor scrambles to his feet as Bucky stares at his left arm, his sense of disorientation and confusion returning so quickly, he nearly stumbles. For a moment he thinks he’s hallucinating. He’s lost the last remaining brain cell that tethered him to reality and now he’s floating in the space between his rational mind and the scrambled eggs HYDRA had left him as a parting gift. Maybe he’s still in cryo. Maybe he’s still space dust, manifesting in half-forgotten memories and a time loop he’ll never be able to break free from.

What the fuck.

He flexes what appears to be a flesh-and-blood left arm and then, just before he decides to lay down on the ground and let his brainworms take him, Thor takes in a sharp breath.

“What has happened to us?”

Bucky shakes his head slightly, as though rattling his brain might reset it, and looks back at Thor. This time he’s less distracted by the reappearance of an arm that he had lost in 19-fucking-44. Mostly because—

“What happened to you?” he asks, blinking.

“Are you just going to keep repeating back what I’ve said to you?” Thor glowers, which is fair enough.

Bucky might have to cognitively come to terms with the re-manifestation of a phantom limb, but Thor apparently has not been left unscathed by Bucky’s brainworm fantasy. The Norse God-alien’s beer gut is gone, as is his long, depression viking beard, and his long, uncombed, depression hair. Instead, he’s built strong, tall, and leanly muscled, like a disciplined military man, with close-cut hair and neatly trimmed facial hair and two eyes of the same color.

Likely prompted by Bucky’s mystified stare, Thor looks down at himself.

“What is this?” he murmurs in surprise. “I do not recognize it at all.”

**art:** Thor, confused, in the World War II uniform of a Howling Commando; **art by:** nalonzooo

Bucky does. He’s wearing an army uniform that even HYDRA couldn’t make Bucky forget.

Bucky’s temple throbs and his senses are caught off balance again, his vision slipping and sliding as his mind tries to understand this—this stacking of one reality on top of another on top of a memory. It doesn’t make any sense, but neither does a flesh-and-blood left arm that he left in a valley in the fucking Alps four lifetimes ago. That doesn’t make it any less true.

This is all fucked up.

“I think I know where we are,” Bucky says slowly, trying to swallow past a slight spike in nausea.

He looks back down at his left arm and bends it at the elbow. He feels his muscles shift and sinews tug, a natural ease to movement on a side of his body that hasn’t felt _ease_ in decades. It feels strange, almost foreign—ironically—the sense of his body acutely off-kilter, even if it physically isn’t. Bucky shakes his head to try to dislodge the feeling—deja vu or disorientation, whatever you want to call it.

“Or, at least...when.”

A complicated series of emotions flicker across Thor’s face then and Bucky doesn’t miss the way he’s cataloguing his body too—fingers pressed to his stomach and then his chest, his hair and the spot under his once-missing eye.

“You think we are in another time?” Thor asks, his voice a little rough.

“Yes,” Bucky says.

“When?” Thor asks.

Bucky hesitates for a moment and then says, “The past.”

Something clicks as he says it—an overwhelming feeling of _belonging_ or _rightness_ , as though the world has finally righted itself on its extremely tilted axis. He doesn’t know why.

“How?” Thor says.

Bucky exhales and shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says. He flexes his left arm again and it moves—no clinking, no whirring. Weird. He looks up at Thor. “But we won’t find out just standing here.”

Thor looks concerned, and then wary, and then, finally, resigned.

“Fine,” he says.

Thor looks at the opening of the tent and nods.

With an increasing and unshakeable sense of _strangeness_ , Bucky reaches for the ties and opens the military canvas.

How does an off-brand supersoldier and the former king of a great alien realm drop from the middle of space into the middle of World War II? Bucky doesn’t have an answer. But he does know the inside of a war tent and he does know the feeling and smell of war in the air, and when he looks at the uniform Thor is wearing, there’s a patch that says _Odinson_ and another patch underneath that says _Howling Commando._

That, Bucky knows best of all.

  
The encampment is similar, but not familiar, which makes Bucky extra wary about whatever it is that’s happened to the two of them. If Thor is wearing Howlie insignia and they’re still in the middle of a war, Bucky clocks them as being sometime between 1943 and 1945, although that’s as far as his extrapolation can go. There’s no telling whether they’re among allies or in enemy territory, to say nothing of where in the campaign Steve might be or if Steve is even with them anymore.

Bucky’s throat constricts at the thought. That’s a possibility. There’s a war, but maybe Steve is already at the bottom of the Atlantic. Maybe Steve is flying the _Valkyrie_ over cold waters right now, a sky full of missiles and a chaotic and borderline fussy Infinity Stone to keep him company just before he downs the entire aircraft and himself with it.

Maybe Steve had never made it to the sky at all.

Maybe he—

“There are others,” Thor suddenly hisses and grabs Bucky’s left arm.

There’s the jarring knowledge that Thor’s fingers are digging into the actual meat of an actual flesh arm before Bucky winces in pain and Thor unceremoniously hauls him behind another tent. There are voices coming toward them, accompanied by the sound of combat boots against the ground and the faint and familiar rustle of weapons against cloth.

Bucky’s nerves spike, his heart thundering in his chest, and Thor motions at him to stay silent.

At first they can’t hear anything, then there are deep voices laughing and talking quickly together.

“That what he told you?” a voice says.

“I swear it!” another voice—higher pitched—nearly whines. “They were like—fuckin’ zombies. You shot ‘em between the eyes and then they just popped back up off the ground. Swear I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

The deeper voice laughs heartily and there’s the sounds of some shoving.

“You never believe me,” the other man says.

“You’re always making up shit, Cox,” says his companion. “Bad enough there’s goddamned Nazis out there we gotta see with our own fucking eyeballs day in and day out and now you’re telling me we gotta deal with some zombie shit too? No thanks.”

“Lewis saw too!” the other man says. His voice ticks up excitedly. “He was there with me in Azzano. He’ll tell you—”

Bucky’s stomach suddenly lurches and Thor gives him a weird look before he realizes he’s now clutching the other Avenger’s arm. He lets go quickly, but his stomach doesn’t settle.

“Lewis got an infected bullet wound in France that’s probably spread to his head too, Jesus, that don’t mean anything.”

“I swear on the life of my _Ma_!” the other man blusters.

“Tell me what that’s supposed to mean to me?” the first man says, with a cackle.

There’s the sound of a shove and some more laughter and the two continue bickering about zombies and Nazis as Thor and Bucky both shuffle backwards quickly to avoid them as the two men cross in front of the tent they’re using for cover. It takes another thirty seconds before they’re out of sight. Bucky lets out a low breath.

“Americans,” he says. “Allies. They won’t shoot us.”

“I would like to see a Midgardian try,” Thor mutters. He looks in front of the tent again and, determining the coast is clear, motions at Bucky to follow him.

  
They walk through the American encampment as confidently as they can without attracting too much attention to themselves. This is surprisingly hard to do when it becomes almost immediately apparent that everyone either knows Thor or wants to know him.

“Odinson!” a man with a red beard and a completely bald head calls to the two of them as they walk past some open tents. “All right there?”

“Oh, you know,” Thor says, with a smile and a cough and hurries past.

It happens again barely thirty seconds later. This time, it’s a skinny blond man whose fatigues seem one size too small for him.

“Odinson!” he calls, waving to him from a row of tents over.

Thor gives a strained smile and waves back, and Bucky grabs his elbow and tries to pull him along quicker. They cross the length of a single tent before they’re almost immediately stopped again, this time by a Black man with close-cropped hair who is a neat foot shorter than Thor.

“Odinson!” the man says with a wide, bright grin. “You son of a bitch!”

Thor gives him a confused, self-effacing smile while Bucky curses under his breath. The man doesn’t notice either of these things.

“You got the best of me last night,” he says, jovially, “but I hope you know that was a one time thing.”

 _Jesus fucking Christ_ , Bucky thinks and hopes that Thor is good at thinking quickly on his feet.

“Ah,” Thor says.

 _Jesus fucking Christ_ , Bucky thinks again.

Then Thor clears his throat. “Well, happens to the best of us...”

“I was drunk,” the young man explains and claps Thor on the shoulder. He really reaches his bicep, but Bucky won’t be the one to point out such ignominy. His own body—his old one—or new one?—or his _new_ old one, Jesus Christ—is, he remembers, 5 foot 9 inches without the boots and two generous inches more with them.

“Weren’t we all,” Thor offers blandly, with a broad smile that’s slightly pinched at the corners of his mouth.

“We had much to celebrate,” the man says and—oh, Bucky can see his name now, Private T. Marshall—lets go of Thor’s bicep. “Though I gotta say if I knew you were going to drink all of us under the table and take us out in poker, I would’ve just called it a night and nursed off all that shitty liquor.”

Private Marshall laughs and Thor, not knowing what to do, laughs along with him. Bucky, growing impatient, digs an elbow into Thor’s side, which makes Thor slightly wheeze. This is the wrong move because Private Marshall finally notices Bucky.

“Who’s this?” he asks, laughter softening into a curious smile.

This cements the thing that Bucky has suspected—and feared—since he realized only one of them is wearing a Howlie patch and army fatigues. Where Thor looks like every other soldier in camp, Bucky is in a loose, collared button up shirt and jungle green pants, which are tucked into laced combat boots. Whatever he is, he’s demonstrably not a soldier.

The problem is, he doesn’t know _what_ he is. Or who.

“Ah, this?” Thor chuckles nervously. “This is my good friend, ah Buc—”

“James,” Bucky says quickly and extends a hand. “James Buchanan.”

“What, like the president?” Private Marshall says and Bucky loosens a familiar grin at him—nothing Bucky’s used in the last 80-odd years, but one that he knows instinctively will help shift suspicion from him. It comes to him easily and immediately, like muscle memory, and even though Thor’s eyebrow shoots up, it does its job. Private Marshall chuckles as though it’s an old joke between the two of them, and shakes his hand.

“Ma was a huge fan,” Bucky says, keeping that easy smile. “Thought he was handsome.”

“Was Buchanan known for being handsome?” Private Marshall asks. “Also, didn’t he die last century?”

“She studied history,” Bucky says and then, again instinctively, winks. “No accounting for taste, I guess.”

“Well maybe she knows something we don’t, then,” the other man says, amiably. He turns back to Thor. “You headed toward the dining tent? Cutting it pretty close today. All you’ll get are the cold dregs of everything. Burnt ends. Not the good kind, either.”

Thor gives Bucky a furtive look and then smiles broadly at this man who seems friendly.

“Actually, we were looking for—” he falters.

Private Marshall blinks at him in the silence and Bucky’s stomach twists with nerves. He’s about to open his mouth and say whatever comes to mind when suddenly, a voice cuts through the air.

“There you are!” a woman says.

It comes to him like this: out of a nightmare or a forgotten dream, or, perhaps, out of the deepest, most wretched part of his subconscious. A voice that he had forgotten and then, briefly, been programmed to hate and then, after that, resented, for reasons he couldn’t name then and can’t name now.

“James Buchanan, I have been looking all over for you!”

Bucky feels a hand press firmly on his shoulder and Private Marshall stands at attention immediately.

“Colonel Phillips would like a word.”

Bucky finds himself wheeling around, stomach filled with dread, to look into the face of Peggy Carter.

  
Peggy Carter is every man’s dream and every boy’s nightmare. She’s sharp and she’s smart and she’s brutal, with her perfectly kept victory rolls and bright red lips that make her look as commanding as she does ravishing. She is beauty, she is grace, she is terrifying when she raises her dark eyebrow a quarter of an inch, the way she is looking at Bucky now.

“Oh, shit,” Private Marshall mutters and has her gaze turn on him for the effort. He immediately stands straighter. “Agent Carter.”

“Private,” Peggy says in her clipped British accent. Her eyes flicker over to Thor. “Sergeant Odinson. Thank you for finding our visitor, but he’s late to meet with the Colonel.” A pause. “And you know he is not a patient man.”

“Colonel Phillips, Jesus,” Private Marshall says, eyes sliding over to Bucky. “What did you do, soldier?”

“He isn’t one,” Peggy says. “That is why he is needed in the Colonel’s tent. Private, Sergeant, don’t you have stations to be at?”

“No, ma’am,” Private Marshall says with a grin. “I have the day off. Haven’t had a day in a month.”

Peggy’s demeanor softens.

“Then you should enjoy your day,” she says. “Lord knows we get few enough of them off.” She turns her attention to Thor. “Sergeant, I believe Privates Morita and Jones were searching for you. Perhaps you should head to the dining hall and leave Mr. Buchanan with me.”

“I don’t think—” Thor begins, but Peggy has a hand on Bucky’s shoulder again and turns him forcibly to follow her. Conversation closed. She gives no chance for disagreement or dissent.

Instead, she steers Bucky along through the camp and Bucky, with one nervous, hopeless glance back at Thor, is left with no option but to go with her.

  
The thing about Peggy Carter is that Bucky has never known what to say to her.

This was true when it was 1943 and he was 26 years old and it’s still true now that it’s who-the-hell-knows-when and he’s whoever-the-fuck-knows-how-old-but-definitely-upward-of-100. He’s never known what to say to her—to the love of Steve’s life—never known how to feel when he turned invisible in between the two of them, or what to do when he was watching her look at Steve and feeling the ground shift under his feet. It’s like a hook in his chest that digs into his ribs, a sharp point burrowing in to his soft flesh, claws that curl into his skin and pull, and pull, and pull, until he’s left with a sharp, piercing pain in his side, as though all of his bones have snapped, and an inability to properly breathe.

He forgets this lingering horror as the years pass and his memories are ground into dust, but it comes to the surface again now, as he glances at her profile and sees the love Steve should have had all along.

He turns away, but he feels them again, those merciless claws, a companion he hasn’t seen in years.

They walk through the encampment in a silence that weighs heavily on him, the tension so high it presses against his eardrums, making him feel unsteady, underwater. He can only stand thirty seconds of this.

Luckily, Peggy speaks before he can gather the courage to do so.

“I know this isn’t the first military base you’ve been to, Mr. Buchanan,” Peggy says. “The telegram we received was clear that you aren’t new. Still, I don’t like the idea of someone like you here, spying on our men.”

Bucky’s nerves ratchet up, but so does his confusion. He frowns.

“Someone like...me?”

Peggy’s mouth thins.

“I know your kind are necessary, don’t misunderstand me. You provide a valuable, integral resource. What you write—what you tell them back home, that matters. It matters to the war effort at home and it matters to the war effort here. But still. You are here as a guest among men who have seen trauma the likes of which you could never imagine.”

“What are you—” Bucky starts, but Peggy stops abruptly.

When she turns toward him, her brown eyes are hard, like flint.

“It is one thing to report a war and another to be in one—to see it, to live it,” she says. “Do you understand me? You may think you understand what these men have been through, what it takes to fight and to win a war, but you do not. You may write about deaths, but you will never be the cause of one. You will never hold that gun in your hand, look at a man, and shoot him between the eyes. You will never have to sleep with that guilt at night. So you see, Mr. Buchanan, you will never understand, not in a way that matters.”

Bucky churns through that slowly and nods.

“I am not trying to be mean,” Peggy says. “I am trying to be honest. Colonel Phillips will talk to you about your privileges and I understand they are great. You’re with the Associated Press?”

“I—” Bucky says, trying to keep up and nods again. “Yes.”

“They’re known for fair reporting, but the fact remains,” Peggy says, watching him carefully. “I want my men respected, Mr. Buchanan. You will be fair to them. You will not press and you will not pry and you will respect their wishes, and if I hear you have done anything untoward, I will have you out of this base faster than I can snap your pencil. Are we clear?”

“Of course,” Bucky says, straightening. “You have my word.”

Peggy Carter stares him down as though she can see through any lies he might have to offer. Knowing what he does of her, that’s probably true. It’s in Bucky’s favor that he had spent so much of the last few years dissociating and staring unblinkingly off into space. It lets him meet Peggy’s gaze now and weather her judgment unflinchingly.

She finally nods, satisfied.

“Good,” she says. “Then let’s visit Colonel Phillips. He’ll be nicer than I am.”

Bucky can’t help it. He remembers Chester Phillips, the mean, unrelenting hardass.

“Really?” he asks, skeptically.

Peggy looks over at him and for the first time, her mouth curves into a smile.

“His bark is worse than his bite,” she says. “But, in full disclosure, his bark is pretty bad.”

*

Thor follows the small, talkative Midgardian through the Midgardian military base with an increasing sense of confusion and paranoia. He looks back a few times to see where the woman—Agent Carter—had led Bucky, but they disappear around a bend opposite from where the man is leading him. The Midgardian keeps talking rapidly and Thor should listen, but he’s worried that if he loses Bucky, they will never figure out how they have ended up in the past or how to find their way back out of it.

“Don’t worry,” the Midgardian—Private Marshall is his name, although what kind of a name _Private_ is, Thor can’t fathom. Maybe he has Kree ancestry he isn’t aware of.

“What?” Thor comes back to attention with a slow blink. They cross a line of smaller tents before coming to a stop before an enormous one. This one is open all around, the tent pitched up on long rods, and inside, Thor can see dozens of men gathered.

“Your friend, right?” Private Marshall says. “Agent Carter is terrifying, but he’ll be okay. Probably. There’s too much going on for him to be strung up by his eyeballs.”

Thor’s eyebrows shoot up and he looks so stricken that his strange companion laughs.

“I’m kidding,” Private Marshall says. “Are you all right? You’re acting weird today.”

Thor swallows and shakes his head.

“Didn’t get much sleep last night,” he lies. “I probably just need to eat.”

“Can’t fault you for that,” Private Marshall says and claps Thor on the shoulder. “Well, Dernier is on kitchen duty, so if you ask him nice and promise not to take all his money at poker again, he might give you more than the pan sludge.”

Thor gives Private Marshall a look that he thinks can be interpreted any way he chooses, but which is honestly more a grimace than anything else. Private returns the look with a grin and does not bother to explain himself further.

It’s with this feeling of confusion, mixed with a perplexing amount of indecipherable dread, that Thor is led into the dining tent to meet the Howling Commandos.

  
The Howling Commandos, Thor learns quickly, is the name of a group of Midgardians who form some kind of special unit that helps Captain America fight Nazis. Nazis, Thor understands, are some kind of evil Midgardian group that seeks to kill and torture other Midgardians for no reason other than sheer hatred and a thoroughly unfounded sense of genetic superiority. It is, honestly, pathetic.

“Ah, yes,” Thor says brightly when someone mentions the Captain. “Steve Rogers, he is a great friend of mine!”

“Yeah, yeah, we _know_ , Odinson,” one of the men who does not seem to be a Howling Commando calls at him. “You’re one of the chosen few. No need to rub it in for the rest of us!”

That makes the rest of the men laugh.

The Howlies, as they call themselves, are loud and they’re joyous and, luckily, they’re more than willing to share tales of their adventures and successes over beer and food, so Thor does not have to bumble through questions that would raise an insurmountable amount of suspicion.

He laughs when they laugh and nods when they throw their arms around his shoulders and offers enough bland statements to affirm whatever it is they mean for him to say without actually saying anything specific. This is a skill that he had picked up from Loki about 700 years ago, which Loki had told him, at the time, was about 300 years too late. His brother was the most annoying person Thor has ever known, but he gives a silent thanks to his ghost, which Thor assumes is currently causing the Norns an unbelievable amount of trouble.

“You remember of course, Odinson!” the bushy-faced man named Dum Dum—this name is so terribly dumb that Thor suspects he has Alfheimian heritage, like Volstagg—and in fact this Dum Dum _reminds_ him of Volstagg, so it could be they are intergalactic cousins—says to him, an arm around Thor’s shoulder.

“Yes, of course,” Thor says, with a laugh. There’s a mug of beer in his hand now, so actually he’s feeling much better about the whole affair. He doesn’t drink it all down at once, but he does help himself to more than one large gulp.

“Tell them what happened as Jones retreated—” Dum Dum says, uproariously, and there’s loud noise from all corners of the long, wooden table.

“Ah,” Thor says and takes another gulp. “Well, why not let Jones tell the story himself, seeing as he is right here with us?”

This is met with more noise, generally positive. Dum Dum tries to talk loudly over Jones, who begins gesturing widely almost immediately, and then there is the frenchman Dernier, who had, in fact, saved more for Thor than just burnt soup sludge, and who now joins them at the table and tries to talk over all of them. There are others who join in too and soon the food is somewhat forgotten, although the drinks aren’t, and the tent is so loud with talk and laughter and jeering that Thor is surprised no one comes to reprimand them for it.

It is bright and it is hearty and something tightens in Thor at the same time it unspools. This Dum Dum and Jones, Dernier, a man named Falsworth, and a man named Morita—they all gather around the table, while other faces turn toward them, shining and if not envious, then at least worshipful. They are the men the others look up to, Thor realizes. They are the men the others trust. The men they would all like to be.

It is as familiar to Thor as it is now a distant memory. His stomach clenches and his fingers curl tightly around his glass. There’s laughter and devotion echoing around him. When he’s smiled at, Thor smiles back, but it does not reach his eyes.

  
The lot of them eat and joke until the sun reaches the highest point in the sky and begins to dip back down again. By then, Thor has a better sense of where he is and when he is and, more importantly, who he’s with. The Howling Commandos are more than a unit, he realizes. They are a group of friends, a band of brothers.

They are like the Warriors Three, he thinks, and swallows the rest of his beer sadly and bitterly.

  
He doesn’t see Bucky again that day, which worries him, but he’s awoken early the next morning to report to the Command tent. The Howling Commandos show up barely on time, most of them unfed and unwatered and, as a result, very cranky. Morita takes a seat at the table and promptly falls asleep on his arms. Next to him, Dernier mutters a string of incomprehensible French that Thor understands to be mostly curses. Eventually, someone—Jones, he thinks—passes around a thermos of lukewarm coffee and that revives them just enough for the gossip to begin.

“A reporter, I hear,” Jones says as they wait for the Captain. “From the Associated Press.”

“Haven’t had any of those before,” Falsworth says in a thick accent that is nearly indecipherable to Thor.

“No, remember that lad, oh what was his name—” Dum Dum says, waving around the thermos in one of his big, meaty hands.

There’s some muttering and it’s Jones who speaks.

“Pyle, wasn’t it?”

“That’s the one!” Dum Dum says and takes a mouthful of coffee. “Serious fellow. Asked a lot of questions, but wrote some great stories. He let me read one.”

“Where was this?” Falsworth asks.

“Mm,” Dum Dum says, considering. “Italy. Don’t remember where. It all sort of runs together, doesn’t it?”

“Some places more than others,” Dernier says lowly and the atmosphere in the tent shifts just slightly as everyone agrees.

“The reporter, though?” Thor asks carefully as the thermos is handed to him. “At this base. Where is he now?”

“Oh yeah, he was found with you, wasn’t he?” Jones asks, squinting at Thor. “Marshall’s been running his mouth. Said Carter found you both and took him from you—what’s his name, then?”

“What’s all this secrecy?” Falsworth asks, nudging Thor’s foot from under the table. “You’ve never been able to keep a secret in your life and you’ve been keeping this from us!”

Thor takes a quick mouthful of coffee—cold now—and sighs and passes it to Morita, who has woken up just enough to snuffle toward the thermos and lift it to his mouth.

“His name is Buc—hanan,” Thor says, remembering the name change last minute. “James Buchanan. I found him wandering near my tent and we were trying to find Phillips when Agent Carter found us.”

“James Buchanan?” Jones blinks comically. “Like the president?”

For Norns sake. Thor is going to need to learn at least _some_ United States presidents before this entire affair is over.

He nods.

“Well, what’s he like? What’s he here for? You think he’ll do a piece on the Howlies?” Jones is excited now, grinning wildly. Next to him Morita finishes the coffee and then flaps a hand in Jones’s face to lower his energy.

“I do not know,” Thor says, honestly. “And he’s very—” What to say about Bucky Barnes…? “Nice.”

That makes all of them groan. Dum Dum leans forward in his seat and opens his mouth to say something in response, but that’s when the tent flap rustles.

Immediately, the atmosphere changes. It grows serious—but only slightly so. Mostly, it gets lighter; it gets brighter. Everyone looks toward the front expectantly, straightening.

Thor looks too.

The flap opens and Captain America walks into the tent.

  
Thor has only ever known Steve Rogers after he had come out of the ice. The Captain America he knows has faced unimaginable amounts of loss. He has lost his best friend, his love, his time, and his entire world. He is a young man with an old man’s burden; one who carries the weight of the world heavily on his broad shoulders. He is a Midgardian and in being one, his life is fleeting, his experiences so short as to be inconsequential—but he is not a normal Midgardian. He is a Midgardian whose lifespan has been stretched beyond what it should be; he is a Midgardian from one time, who has been forced to live in another. He may not have the thousands of years that Thor has, but he has felt them, in his own way.

The Steve Rogers that Thor knows is stern; he’s unrelenting, and haunted, and incomprehensibly sad. The Steve he knows gives smiles as though they cost him something and offers laughs even less. It is no easy thing, to live in a world that looks to you for everything and still, after you have given it all you have to give, finds you wanting.

Thor respects his Steve Rogers and he hurts for him as well—after all, Thor, among them all, knows best the burden of that kind of expectation, and what it costs when you fail.

The Steve Rogers who leans against the table now, with both of his hands braced against the wooden top, outlining the strategy for the next raid and the plan to cut the Red Skull’s forces off at the knees, is none of these things. He has the bright blue eyes Thor remembers, but none of the shadows. He stands tall, but his shoulders do not bend under weight. He is charming and he is bright and he is well-spoken. He respects his men and it’s clear that they adore him, that there is a reason they are here, in the middle of this endless, brutal fight, and part of it is for their nation and their pride and the other is for him—this golden, shining man.

Thor watches this Steve and, having nothing to say, simply listens. It’s clear to him—as it’s clear to the other men—that Steve has mapped out all parts of the plan. He shows them on a map where he believes the Red Skull to be hiding. He shows them all of the spots he expects the Skull’s men to be and all of the places they might be instead and, just in case, all of the areas left over. He tells them the contours of his plan, with a role for each of them, and as he speaks, his eyes grow brighter and his voice deeper and the men around him react to this in turn—Morita watches him unblinkingly and Dugan leans toward his Captain’s voice and Falsworth puts out the cigarette he had lit.

Thor is not unaffected by him. He listens carefully, although he doesn’t understand a fair bit of what Steve has to say, watching the map, watching the other men, watching Steve as he explains and waits for suggestions and questions and answers them all in turn. Still, Thor is engrossed in this, somehow—in the plan, in this war, in this role he is playacting, like he would when he and Loki were younger and would spend days playing War Council, Thor as Odin’s Commander General and Loki, sometimes as their father, and sometimes as an advisor with other loyalties.

Steve shifts on his feet as Dugan asks him a critical question. He runs a hand through his hair and chews on the question. He does not falter or anger.

When he answers, it’s measured and thoughtful. It’s an honest answer, which is to say it is not easy, but it is not disheartening either. When he looks up at Dugan, the man’s expression is clear of any doubt. He lets out a breath and nods, as though fortified.

This is when Thor finally understands his old friend—why he is here, with these men, what he means to them, and why he was always meant to be their Captain.

  
The discussion lasts the better part of the day and by the time Steve lets his shoulders relax and a more human light comes back into his eyes, it’s well past the time to eat and everyone is starving, but in good spirits. They clap Steve on his back and at once he turns from their unimpeachable leader to their friend, a man they respect, but who they will drag to the dining tent to have a beer with.

The Howling Commandos clear the Command tent, stretching and chattering, only Steve and Thor left behind.

“You were quiet,” Steve says as he clears the maps from the table. “Is everything all right?”

Thor, who has always left Loki to do these things, helps.

“Just a long night,” Thor says. “And you did not seem to need the help.”

“It’s a risk,” Steve says and for the first time, a bit of a nerve cracks through his voice. “Going into the Alps. There are a lot of ways this can go wrong.”

“That is true of any plan,” Thor says. “There are also many ways it can go right.”

Steve raises an eyebrow and Thor’s mouth curves up in a wry smile.

“All right, well there is at least one way it can go right,” he says. “Let us focus on that.”

Steve rolls a map and Thor gathers a stack of papers with small, feverish writing scrawled across the pages.

“The others,” Steve says, hesitating. “They don’t question a lot. I say something, they’re willing to take me for my word. Sometimes they’ll point something out, but it’s not—they trust me and I appreciate it.”

Thor slows his movements and looks up at Steve.

“You’re willing to be more honest,” Steve says and straightens with his maps. “I want you to be honest with me, Thor. Is this stupid? Am I just leading my men to their deaths?”

Thor doesn’t like being asked this question. He doesn’t like thinking about that—the cost of leading, the toll of making a decision, a plan left—the only plan left—where success might mean failure, where to win also means to lose everything. He drinks to stop thinking about this. But he has no drink and Steve watches him expectantly.

Thor takes a breath and the ashes of Asgard burn at the back of his throat.

“Do you have any other choice?” he asks.

“There’s always another choice,” Steve says, softly.

“Is there a better one?” Thor says.

Steve catches his eyes and holds them. Thor’s mistake. Steve is unrelenting here as well.

“No,” Steve says, shaking his head. “This one is the best chance we have of cutting Schmidt off. If we pull this off, we shut down most of his operation. We catch Zola. Maybe we catch him.”

Steve takes a breath.

“Maybe we end this war.”

Thor remembers that—not just a need to win, but a desperation for it. No one was meant to fight battles forever.

“Then, Captain, you have your answer,” Thor says. “Do not second guess your gut instinct.”

“What if it’s wrong?” Steve asks.

“Sometimes it is wrong,” Thor admits. “And if it is, you will have to learn to live with it. But you will have to learn to live with it either way. Either you take the chance and you fail, or you don’t take the chance and you spend all your days wondering whether you should have.”

Steve’s expression pinches and when he smiles this time, it’s wry.

“Is there a third option?”

Thor snorts and shifts the papers from his arms to Steve’s.

“Yes,” he says. “You do neither and drink instead.”

He leaves through the front opening and Steve doesn’t stop him.

  
Thor doesn’t see Bucky that day either, nor the day after. He begins to worry and ask around, but although everyone has heard of James Buchanan, the journalist, and some have even spoken to him briefly, no one knows where he might be found.

By the end of the week, the Howling Commandos have an assignment from Colonel Phillips, who is not as scary as Odin, but definitely is trying to model his personality after him. The Commandos are quiet through the briefing, mostly standing at attention and listening to the details of a small village in France that they are tasked with rescuing from Nazi terror. The Colonel is not nearly as thorough as Steve and the assignment is nothing so creative or terrible. The general consensus is that it is a routine enough mission and that they should be back to the camp by the end of the following week.

Thor’s anxiety—already interminably high—increases. He hasn’t seen Bucky in days and if he goes to France with this band of Midgardians, he might lose him altogether. What if Bucky is captured and killed in the war? What if he finds the answer to why they are stuck in the past and how to go back to their time? Thor doesn’t have any of his normal powers, not in this body. He has tried to call to Heimdall, since the Gatekeeper should not be dead in 1944, and received no answer. Thor is as Midgardian as the rest of them here, in the middle of World War II. He cannot remain.

“Colonel,” Thor asks as the others file out.

“Odinson,” Colonel Phillips looks up at him with distinct displeasure.

Thor blinks, so familiar with this expression that it almost soothes him.

“James Buchanan,” he says. “The reporter. Where is he?”

“That man,” Phillips says, with a glower. “Oh, who knows? I told him to check back in with me at the end of the day, every day, but does he? No. He took the press identification and left and now he’s probably out there in the middle of the camp, harassing all of my soldiers.”

“You don’t know?” Thor says, dismayed.

“No, Odinson, I don’t know where your journalist friend is,” Phillips says, rising from behind his desk. “In case you had somehow missed it in that pretty blond head of yours, I’m a little busy? Hands a little tied up? Oh, there’s this thing called a war that I’m in the middle of trying to win so that we don’t get overrun by overconfident Nazi bastards led by a man with a hard on for blond hair and blue eyes.”

Thor looks at Phillips uncomfortably and Phillips waves him away.

“Leave!” he barks. “I have other things to worry about and you have your assignment. Buchanan will pop up where he pops up and if he does and you see him—”

Thor blinks and Phillips’ glower deepens.

“You tell him I’m going to kick his ass from here to Kingdom Come and he _may_ quote me on that.”

Thor bites back an impatient sigh and nods.

“Very well, sir,” he says and turns to leave.

“Oh, and Odinson,” Phillips says and Thor turns back, briefly.

“Bother me again and you’ll join him,” he says. “Dismissed!”

  
Thor and the Commandos are meant to leave for France in three days’ time and he still hasn’t found Bucky. He hopes it’s because the other man has found Steve and has attached himself to his side. Anything more insidious than that is more than Thor has the capacity to handle right now.

Still, he’s a good friend—acquaintance—begrudging partner in being stuck in a different timeline—so Thor spends the few hours of light left prowling through the camp and asking everyone whether they have heard of James Buchanan and where he might find him.

He gets different answers—“At the dining tent” and “Oh, I saw him washing earlier” and “I think he’s around the edge somewhere?”—but the base is so large that he makes little to no progress in _actually_ finding him.

By evening, Thor is hungry and tired and frustrated and, frankly, ready to give up on this whole endeavor. He is ready to leave Barnes here, in the middle of this foreign country, in the middle of battle, and find his own way back to his own time.

It was Barnes’s fault that they were stuck here anyway. Thor doesn’t know _how_ , exactly, but he does know that he was perfectly fine minding his own business on Vanaheim and then the Midgardian had showed up with a ludicrous conspiracy theory and now suddenly he’s stuck in a time that is not his, as a person he never has been. To say nothing of this Midgardian body, which is very fit in its own human way, but cannot handle its liquor even a quarter as well as his Aesir body used to.

So he wishes Bucky Barnes the best on his enterprise, but Thor has other priorities. Namely, drinking more.

“He will be fine,” Thor mutters out loud, running a hand through his short hair. “He does not need me. No one needs me.”

He passes one of the medical tents as he’s muttering to himself and is turned halfway toward the dining tent when something happens.

It’s nothing, really.

It isn’t really deja vu, but it isn’t really tangible either. It’s nothing he can put into words. It’s just that he takes a step and then stops.

His skin sparks, everywhere.

Thor frowns.

He takes another step and he feels it again, something at the edge of his awareness. It’s like a passing image, a mirage or one reality pasted on top of another. Thor feels an acute sense of hyperawareness and something deep within him—disbelief, grief, denial—tug so violently that he gasps.

His arms are covered in raised gooseflesh.

Slowly, trying to stop his mind from reeling, Thor turns on his heels.

At first he doesn’t understand.

Then he doesn’t see it.

Then both happen, at once.

Thor takes in a sharp, pained breath.

Across the path from him, inside the medical tent, kneeling next to a man with bandages covering the majority of his face, is a nurse with long, dark hair and familiar, bright green eyes.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, I could not be more obsessed with Nikki's art this chapter. Bucky is so beautiful? I want to protect him always? THOR IN A HOWLING COMMANDO UNIFORM IS DOING THINGS FOR ME. Stare at them both and leave her so much love!! ♥


	4. Chapter Four. [ first oddity: world war ii ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey,” Bucky says, tapping the nearest one on the shoulder. “What’s going on—” 
> 
> The question dries in his throat. Some taller soldiers shift from the front of the crowd and there, direct in his eyeline, is his answer.
> 
> He’s tall and he’s blond and he’s young, too. 26 years old, shot up overnight like a weed, built like a brickhouse, with bright blue eyes and a smile that doesn’t wear three lifetimes of sorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday, again, friends! Today, we go deeper into the first oddity and see what awaits Bucky and Thor in the middle of WWII. Enjoy! ♥

Compared to Peggy, Colonel Phillips is as intimidating as Banner after he’s startled awake from a nap. That is to say he’s grumpy and he glowers and he definitely barks a few times over, but at the end of his lecture, Bucky is given a badge he can pin to his shirt that shows he has permission to be in camp and an identification card to prove he’s from the Associated Press. Seventy years of torture and unfeeling handlers screaming at him and stabbing him with a cattle prod leaves Chester Phillips tame as a kitten to Bucky, although he remembers a time when that hadn’t been the case.

At any rate, he answers Phillips with bland statements and nods mildly and agrees to check in once a day with him as he conducts his interviews and writes his pieces. Bucky has no intention of doing any of this, but he’s a good liar and Phillips dismisses him with a renewed glower and a wave of his hand.

Peggy, who’s been standing beside the Colonel the entire time, gives Bucky a faint smile, as though she’s already read through him and clocked his intentions, which is unsettling, but ultimately not too different from how he’s always felt about her.

He leaves the tent with no little relief and sets out immediately to find Thor again. He doesn’t know how they got here and he doesn’t know why everything seems slightly different— _just_ off from his memories—but he doesn’t care to stay long enough to find out. Unlike, apparently, his former best friend, Bucky is of the mind that timelines are better left untouched.

Bucky crosses the path from Phillips’s tent back toward where he left Thor. He has a feeling he’ll find the Norse alien in the dining tent, which, from observation, is back in the direction he came from.

He’s only made it past two rows of tents when there’s some kind of a commotion. Bucky, frowning, slows.

There’s a group of young soldiers, all with bright, eager looks on their faces, crowded together, jostling while trying to get a better look at something. There’s a bit of a din from them, just a click higher than normal soldier chaos. Curiosity killed the former brainwashed assassin, he guesses, because Bucky can’t help but delay his own mission to draw closer to the crowd.

There’s at least three soldiers—so fucking young, 19 if they’re a fucking day—who are laughing and shoving at each other near the back to get a glimpse of whatever it is that’s causing the stir.

“Hey,” Bucky says, tapping the nearest one on the shoulder. “What’s going on—”

The question dries in his throat. Some taller soldiers shift from the front of the crowd and there, direct in his eyeline, is his answer.

He’s tall and he’s blond and he’s young, too. 26 years old, shot up overnight like a weed, built like a brickhouse, with bright blue eyes and a smile that doesn’t wear three lifetimes of sorrow.

Bucky remembers him, suddenly, remembers him clearly in a way that he has since forgotten—the solid build of his shoulders, held steady with pride, golden hair glinting in the catch of sunlight, and an expression both steely in determination and cracked open with hope. Steve, before he had lost everything. Steve, before he had been proven wrong.

“It’s Captain America,” the young man says to Steve, excitedly. “He’s back!”

  
Bucky feels unsteady on his feet. There’s a catch in his chest, a little groove of sorrow that clicks when he swallows. The crowd doesn’t leave Steve alone, not for some time, and Bucky remembers this too—how Steve had commanded every room he was in, how his very presence had caused a spike in hope—in excitement, in belief—almost as though he was a talisman, the lantern they had needed in the middle of a dark and endless war.

Bucky remembers seeing this for the first time after Azzano. He remembers being disarmed by it. He hadn’t been jealous, not really. It was more that he had felt disoriented, his body suddenly come unmoored. He had come into the war knowing one thing and had left Zola’s experiment chamber with his reality changed. He hadn’t known what to do with that. He supposes, he hadn’t had too much time, after, to figure it out.

The crowd eventually lessens and Bucky sucks in a breath and, head buzzing, pushes his way to the front.

Steve, who had been talking to a young private with hearts in his eyes, looks up.

For a moment, a slight frown presses in between his brows, but then his expression clears. He offers a polite smile.

“Hello,” Steve says. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Oh.

Bucky searches his face for a moment, but there’s nothing there. No spark. A complete lack of recognition.

It hurts more than he expects it to.

Bucky sucks in a shaky breath. He sways, for a moment, on his feet, and then folds his face into an unreadable, polite smile as well.

“James Buchanan,” he says as he offers Steve a hand. “From the Associated Press. I’ve been sent to write a piece about you.”

  
It doesn’t take that much to convince Steve to be profiled for Bucky’s fake journalism piece. Maybe Steve has a deep-seated respect for the institution of journalism. Maybe he’s used to the coverage from when Captain America was nothing more than an entertainer and welcomes a more thoughtful, serious profile. Maybe he just wants someone to talk to and Bucky knows—still knows, even with a Steve who isn’t his own—how to listen to him.

“I’m in and out,” Steve says as they walk slowly back toward his tent. It’s near the center of the encampment, although unassuming enough if you ignore that it’s three times the size of most of the other tents. “I have briefings and meetings. Missions. Sometimes quick, sometimes longer. I won’t take you out into the field.”

“That’s part of my job,” Bucky says. “I’m not afraid of a little danger.”

Steve’s expression hardens.

“This isn’t a game. I don’t know what your other field assignments were like, but this is war,” he says. “You go into the field and you got enemy snipers. You have grenades and bombings. You’ll get shot at and I can’t worry about saving you when I have to watch my men.”

“I’ve been shot at,” Bucky argues. “I know how to handle a gun.”

“I won’t put you in danger,” Steve says, voice steel.

“I need to do my job—”

“No.”

“Steve—” Bucky starts and then sucks in the word—too late.

Steve pauses and his expression flickers. Again, there’s a quick press of confusion between his brows.

Bucky swallows a sigh and nods.

“I understand, Captain,” he says.

Steve watches him for a moment and then nods in return.

“This is my tent,” he says.

“We can start tomorrow,” Bucky offers.

Steve hesitates, but then smiles. Again, bland and polite. The smile of a stranger.

Bucky hates it.

“Tomorrow, then,” Steve says.

Bucky watches him disappear into the tent. He holds still for a moment and wishes, distantly, that he could follow him inside.

  
Bucky is given his own small tent, somewhere in the maze of the camp. He doesn’t know where Thor is and no way of finding his way back to the army green tent in which he had awoken, in a sea of identical army green tents. Instead, he asks around for Thor, but the answers are about as useless as he would expect from a hundred men so young he can still see the pimples from their prepubescence—“Oh, he’s with the Howlies” and “In the dining tent, maybe?” and “I don’t know, have you tried asking someone else?”

He gives up eventually and after a quick dinner in the dining tent—where he does not find Thor, thanks Private Rochester—he curls up on the hard army cot in his tent.

Bucky has slept on all manners of surfaces in a manner of different ways over the last 80 years—on the ground, and sitting, strapped to a chair, and in a bed, and against a wall, and on top of an open roof, and in a closet, and on a mattress on the ground, and in a bedroll and, briefly, in a too-soft bed in a two-bedroom apartment. He thinks, of all of the places he has slept and all of the manners in which he has been forced to rest, he misses this the most of all—a hard cot on the ground, in a tent so small moving an inch would bump elbows, fingers pressed into sides, watching eyelashes flutter in the dark, while pretending not to, matching breath for breath, or in a warm bedroll, next to another bedroll, next to the ashes of a long burned fire, under a blanket of stars.

It’s different, but it’s the same, and although there would be just enough room for another cot now, that space is taken not by a person, but his memories.

Bucky, exhausted, aching physically and metaphysically, stretches on his side and closes his eyes.

He dreams of a person close enough to touch and far enough to lose, the two of them separated by space gravel, a patch of space shimmering in shades of purple and blue.

  
Steve had spent the last two weeks off base, on a secret mission that had involved him, Agent Carter, and three other British agents that no one is able to identify. Agent Carter had come back two days before Steve. The other agents had left the base entirely for another.

Steve tells him all of this in passing as he sits at the edge of his cot, pulling on his boots. Bucky had woken before the sun had risen, his skin buzzing with suffocating, restless energy. As a result, he had showed up at Steve’s tent a good thirty minutes before Steve had been expecting him.

“Sorry,” Bucky apologizes and Steve pulls back the flap to the tent and asks him to come inside. “Woke up early and—didn’t want to miss anything.”

“I’m the one who should be apologizing,” Steve says, with a half-smile. “Not a great precedent, to wake up this late, but it’s been a long few weeks.”

There’s a small desk with a map, notebook, and lamp on it and one chair to either side of it. Bucky takes a seat on one of them and they make small talk as Steve walks around his tent, pulling his bedding tight at the corners of his cot and gathering fresh clothes to change into.

“Do you mind if I—?” Steve asks, gesturing to a clean shirt and Bucky shakes his head.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he says. “I mean, I already have, so—just pretend I’m not here.”

“A little hard to do that,” Steve says, with a smile.

“Terrible company?” Bucky asks, mouth twitching at the corner.

“Company in general,” Steve says. He strips out of his sleep shirt and Bucky tries to keep his expression calm. “It’s a big tent, but it’s usually just me in here.”

“Really?” Bucky asks. “But you have two chairs.”

Steve picks up a clean undershirt and pauses, his body half turned toward Bucky and half turned toward his cot. From here, Bucky can see the clean lines of his body, the muscles given to him by the serum—the dips and ripples as he moves, the way his trapezius juts out at the front and deltoids slope down to biceps that must make up half of his newly gained body weight. This is Steve freshly out of the oven, marveling and reveling in his new body in a way he was never able to with his old, a Steve whose body was engineered to be a scientific marvel, before it had grown rough and weary, worn down around the edges in a visible way, if not necessarily a physical one. This isn’t the largest Steve will be, but it is the most perfect he will be, in a definitional sense, a body pumped with chemicals and come relentlessly to life.

He’s beautiful, that much is clear. But then, Steve was always beautiful, even if he never seemed to understand that.

“Sometimes Peggy—Agent Carter comes and visits,” Steve says.

“Ah,” Bucky says. He doesn’t mean to show it on his face, but it must because Steve immediately colors and shakes his head.

“Oh no—not like that,” he says quickly. “It’s not—nothing unprofessional. She doesn’t stay long. Sometimes she comes and we discuss strategy. The war. The men.”

Steve’s voice becomes a little high, like he does when he’s embarrassed or nervous, and that makes Bucky smile a little. He relaxes and sinks back into the wooden chair. Steve shoves the undershirt over his head.

“That’s only one person, Captain,” Bucky says, carefully. “What’s the other chair for?”

Steve tucks the shirt in and then reaches for his military-issued button up.

“The hope that someone else will come visit too,” he says. A smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Anyone else.”

 _Oh._ Bucky doesn’t say it out loud, but he feels it hit his chest that way—just a soft, quiet _oh_ , like a little hurt that he isn’t quick enough to avoid.

Steve buttons up his shirt and tucks this into his pants too. He’s quiet as he does his tie and then shrugs on his olive drab officer’s jacket. The jacket fits his shoulders nicely, tapering down to his narrow waist, which he cinches with a leather belt. The gold buttons glimmer against the drab cloth in the dull light of the tent and there’s an assortment of patches and pins along the front too, that seem to flicker the more Bucky stares at them. He turns after he’s done up, with a shyer smile.

“What do you think?” Steve asks. “Too much?”

Bucky quietly inhales.

“You’re glittering,” he says, after a moment.

That makes Steve’s mouth twist up at the corner.

“I told them I didn’t need all of the pins,” he says. “I keep thinking I’m going to lose one and then Phillips will finally have a reason to write me up.”

“Pin loss is a writable offense?” Bucky asks.

“Anything is a writable offense if you try hard enough,” Steve says. Then he looks stricken. “That was off the record.”

Bucky laughs at that and it’s with a smile that he says, “I don’t know about the dangers of losing pins, but you could blind a guy if the sun hits one of those gold buttons just right.”

“Now that’s a weapon the United States Army has not considered enough,” Steve says wryly.

“Think if I suggest it to Phillips, he’ll like me more?” Bucky asks.

That actually does make Steve laugh, a short, surprised thing. The sound warms Bucky’s skin.

“Unlikely,” Steve says. “He hates journalists.”

Bucky looks up at Steve fondly—perhaps too fondly—trying not to be too fond—and tilts his head, just a little.

“And what about you, Captain? Do you hate journalists too?”

Steve’s expression, reserved, but warming, softens a little more.

“I’m starting to come around to them,” he says. “And please, Mr. Buchanan. Call me Steve.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, warmly. “Call me Bucky.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, with a nod. He turns and folds his sleep clothes neatly and combs over his hair.

He picks up his hat between his hands and then, after a moment’s indecision, puts it back down on his cot.

“Too hot for the hat,” Steve says sheepishly, turning back to Bucky.

“I’ll keep it from your profile,” Bucky says, with a soft smile. “Our little secret.”

  
Bucky follows Steve closely over the rest of the day. He’s like a persistent shadow at his elbow, quietly observing, but noticeable, no matter how much he tries to fold into himself. He follows him to the dining tent and they drink coffee and eat breakfast together, the sun too low in the morning sky for them to be joined by anyone but other officers. Steve is mostly quiet and Bucky is too, but every once in a while Bucky will think of something and ask him and Steve will turn his entire attention on him and answer.

“How is the war going?” Bucky asks, at first. It’s not an interesting question to him, but it’s a warm up—a throat clearing that has Steve look up at him from his coffee with reserved professionalism.

“It’s going well,” he says. “We’re winning.”

Bucky breaks off a piece of bread and dips it into his coffee.

“Okay,” he says. And then, “How’s the war really going?”

A look of surprise flickers across Steve’s face and then his shoulders slump—just a little.

“It’s going okay,” Steve says. “I hope we’re winning.”

They drain one cup of coffee each and then Steve goes to get them some more. When he returns, Bucky thanks him and asks him, “What’s your favorite breakfast?”

“During the war?” Steve asks, surprised.

“Any time,” Bucky says. “What’s your favorite breakfast regardless of global conflict?”

Steve’s mouth twitches, but he looks thoughtful.

“An Irish breakfast,” he says. “Big and hearty, like my Ma used to make me on the weekends. Bacon, sausage, beans, eggs, mushrooms, potatoes. Sometimes tomatoes if I like to pretend I’m being healthy. Just pile all of it onto one plate, eat until your stomach hurts.”

Bucky, who knows this answer, suppresses a smile.

“Your Ma used to make Irish breakfasts?”

“When she had the time,” Steve says and a note of fondness creeps into his voice. “She was Irish. Came over through Ellis Island, all by herself.”

“Not with her parents?” Bucky asks.

“No, her parents passed away when she was young—some kinda disease. Flu, maybe. She never said, really,” Steve says. He also tears a piece of buttered bread to chew on. “She was only fifteen, on a boat to a different country, by herself. Can you imagine?”

“No,” Bucky says, truthfully. “That must have been scary.”

“I think so,” Steve says. “But it made her stronger. Didn’t always get the best hand, my Ma, but she made do the best she could and I think it was because of that.”

“Because of immigration?”

Steve smiles slightly and shakes his head. “No. Well, I guess, yes. But coming here, all by herself. Making a life for herself here. Meeting my Dad and having me and losing him and raising me—there’s a whole life there, you know? We never think of them that way.”

“Who?” Bucky asks, watching him.

“Our mothers,” Steve says. He looks distant, almost faded. Then he comes back to himself with a sad laugh. “By the time you realize they’re people too, they’re gone.”

Steve’s sadness is Bucky’s own. Bucky doesn’t remember a lot of things from their shared past, but he does remember Sarah Rogers—small and blonde-haired, just like her son, but bright and tenacious, like she could take a problem between her teeth and tear through it. Bucky remembers her as he thinks Steve would want him to remember her. He doesn’t remember her after she developed tuberculosis. He thinks that’s for the best.

“Is she—” Bucky asks, as gently as possible.

“Yeah,” Steve says, quietly. “She was sick. I was 18.”

“Steve,” Bucky says. “I’m so sorry.”

Steve gives him a sad, tight smile.

“Surely you had someone, after she passed,” Bucky says. “A neighbor. Maybe a...best friend. Someone else to take care of you.”

Steve doesn’t meet Bucky’s eyes and Bucky frowns, not understanding.

It takes him a moment. He traces the line of Steve’s resolute jaw with his eyes and it’s only when he gets to the tip that it occurs to him. It dawns on Bucky, slowly, like a thought lagging behind, this fundamental, terrible, obvious thing—that this Steve isn’t _his_ Steve, no matter all of the ways he seems to be his Steve. That what Bucky remembers might be this Steve’s truth too, but it also might not be. That what’s left behind—that space between his Steve’s truth and this Steve’s truth—is a closed door for which he does not already have the key.

“No,” Steve says, with a tight, shuttered expression on his face. He looks away. “No one like that.”

Bucky has always thought to himself—who is Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers? He has never, until now, thought to question—who is Steve Rogers, without Bucky Barnes?

He doesn’t know what to say and Steve doesn’t offer anything more.

They drink the rest of their coffee in silence.

  
Steve’s day moves rapidly from one side of the camp to the other. He meets with Phillips (who resolutely ignores Bucky) and Peggy in Phillips’ tent, first. This takes up much of the morning. After that, he moves toward the medical tent, where he takes at least an hour to sit by the beds of those soldiers who have been most recently injured, talking to them.

He is then pulled into a meeting with other officers who have little to add by way of strategy, but give him updates on supplies and medical aid and what Churchill has said now and what President Roosevelt said in response. There’s some updates on battle line movements and some updates on what their spies have found out about Schmidt’s next moves and some updates on things no one cares about and could possibly have no bearing on the war effort at all.

This meeting takes up more hours than Bucky could possibly stay lucid for, so by the time it’s done, both he and Steve are looking worse for the wear.

“If I suggested beer for lunch, would that reflect poorly on my profile?” Steve asks, running a hand through his hair.

“I read somewhere that alcohol does nothing for you,” Bucky says, capping his pen as though he had been taking diligent notes.

“Nothing physically,” Steve says, with a grin. “But spiritually, so much.”

Bucky laughs at that. “If the American Public heard I was dissuading Captain America’s spiritualism, I think I would be considered a traitor to the country’s morale. And the church, probably.”

“No place for traitors here, Bucky,” Steve says. “That’s too much paperwork and we have to meet the Howlies later.”

Bucky’s chest tightens at that.

“The Howlies?” he asks.

“The Howling Commandos,” Steve says, with a grin. “Oh, you’ll like them.”

  
They do make a quick meal of lunch, taken in Steve’s tent as he prepares maps and gathers papers to take for a meeting with the Howlies. They allow themselves one beer each. Bucky peppers Steve with questions as Steve finishes his cold sandwich in four bites even. Steve answers his questions and they laugh. It’s nice, in a restless kind of way.

Then they leave together, Bucky holding aside the tent opening for Steve and Steve smiling and going through. They talk along the way across the camp to the Strategy tent.

  
It’s an indescribable feeling, to see people whose deaths you’ve read about in the archives. Bucky sees Gabe Jones first, bored at the table, stabbing a knife in between his fingers. He sees Falsworth next, tipped back in his seat, a cigarette between his lips, just the way Bucky remembers. There’s Morita, quietly watching Gabe, and there’s Dum Dum, rapidly talking to—

Bucky inhales quickly.

Thor’s eyes widen and he stops, mid-sentence.

“Jesus fuck, finally,” Bucky mutters under his breath. He makes eyes at Thor, to indicate to him _we need to fucking talk_ and Thor makes a gesture at him, as though to indicate _Yes, I am well aware, where on Midgard have you been?_ but unfortunately that is where the silent conversation ends, because Steve finally comes in with his scrolls and sets them all down on the table.

“All, this is James Buchanan,” Steve says out loud. “He is a reporter with the Associated Press. I’m sure you’ve already heard the rumors.”

“Yes, and we wouldn’t mind some clarification,” Dum Dum says, turning from Thor toward the front of the tent.

“Dum Dum,” Steve warns, but Steve can say one thing and the Howlies will accept it or not, as they see fit.

“Who do you report to?” Dum Dum asks.

“I hear it’s Stalin,” Falsworth says, eyes narrowed.

“I hear it’s Churchill!” Jones offers.

“Why are you here?” Dum Dum adds.

“I hear it’s to reveal all of our secrets,” Jones says.

“I hear it’s to steal all of our beer,” Falsworth glowers.

“What were you doing on the night of the 17th of Apr—” Dum Dum starts and Steve clears his throat loudly.

“Enough!” he says. He turns an apologetic smile toward Bucky. “The Howlies. I did warn you.”

“I think all you said was I would like them,” Bucky says.

“And do you?” Dum Dum asks, very suspiciously.

Bucky blinks at them and Thor, next to Dum Dum, makes another sort of gesture that reads _do not be an idiot and ruin this for me Barnes, I have made very good friends with this other large man with a mustache_.

“Yes?” Bucky offers.

“Oh,” Dum Dum says.

“That’s fine then,” Morita finally adds.

The rest of the group falls into easy, loud chatter until Steve clears his throat again.

“I have maps,” he says, leaning his arms against the table. “The roads we’ll take.”

“Do we have approval?” Falsworth asks, taking a drag on his cigarette.

“In a sense,” Steve hedges.

“Oh, this will be good,” Jones says.

Bucky settles near the back of the tent and watches the Howlies go back and forth with Steve until Thor, slowly, skirting the edges of the tent, finds himself beside him.

“Where have you been?” Thor hisses out of the corner of his mouth. “I have been looking everywhere for you!”

“You clearly weren’t looking hard enough,” Bucky hisses back. “Where have you been? We need to talk.”

“I know we need to talk, that is why I have been looking everywhere for you!” Thor whispers furiously. “I have something to tell you!”

“I have something to tell _you_ ,” Bucky whispers.

They don’t get the chance to tell one another the thing they have to tell one another. There’s too much planning and arguing happening for that and every once in a while, someone looks back at Thor and solicits his opinion. Still, they manage to whisper back and forth enough to agree to meet at the dining tent in two days’ time. ( _“We are going to France in three days,”_ Thor whispers to Bucky. _“Let us meet the night before. Your Howling Commandos will not allow me a minute to myself before then.”_ )

Bucky nods.

That gives him enough time to continue following Steve for a little while longer.

Maybe it’s not his Steve, but it is _a_ Steve. It’s a Steve he has found; one he has not yet lost. And if Bucky has to leave him after this, if he has to lose him again, then he wants all of that time—every moment of the two more days with Steve, before he has to say goodbye once more.

  
By the time the meeting is finished, it’s turned dark outside and Bucky is exhausted. Steve is too, Bucky can tell by looking at him.

“Oh, you don’t have to—” Steve says, as Bucky helps him collect his maps and papers again.

“You’ve done all this work for the country,” Bucky says. “The least I can do is help pick up some papers.”

“Thanks, Bucky,” Steve says, smiling.

They walk back to Steve’s tent slowly. Around them, the camp is dark, but lit with lamps. Here, in the middle of the night, with softly drifting voices and spots of laughter, it’s almost hard to tell that they’re in the middle of something so terrible. It could be any other night, just the two of them walking side-by-side.

Except Steve doesn’t know Bucky and Bucky—maybe he doesn’t know Steve either.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to spend more time with you today,” Steve says. “I promised you an interview and all I’ve made you do is follow me around.”

“I chose to do that myself,” Bucky says, with a half-smile. “Part of my job.”

“Ask me a question now,” Steve says, looking at him. “Any question.”

Bucky doesn’t, not immediately. He has his hands in his pockets and they walk through the slightly humid air, dirt crunching beneath their boots. His shoulders ache with unacknowledged tension and his head buzzes, that low, tired thrumming after a full, exhausting day.

They stop just in front of Steve’s tent and he looks back at Bucky. Down at him, really. Steve in his new body is over six feet tall and Bucky, in this body, inches shorter.

“No question?” Steve asks, softly.

Bucky watches him, the moonlight in his hair, the soft, tired look around his eyes and it reminds him so much of Steve— _his_ Steve. Maybe that’s why.

“Are you happy?”

Steve’s expression stills.

“What?”

Bucky feels it gently, the way his heart constricts. He ignores it, carefully.

“Are you happy, Steve?” he says.

“We’re in the middle of a war, Bucky,” Steve says.

Bucky nods.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Steve is quiet.

He’s quiet for long enough that Bucky thinks he’s not going to answer. Bucky shifts on his feet and is about to apologize for overstepping, when Steve shakes his head.

“People don’t want to read about that,” he says, quietly. “They don’t want to know how Captain America feels.”

Bucky’s chest aches.

“I didn’t ask Captain America,” he says. “I asked you.”

Steve says nothing for a moment.

When he smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes. When he smiles, it barely reaches the edges of his mouth.

The smile Steve gives Bucky is a soft, sad, terrible thing. It’s barely a smile at all.

“I wish you had asked Captain America,” he says.

He shifts his papers and opens his tent.

“Goodnight, Bucky,” Steve says, and goes inside.

*

  
**art:** Bucky and Steve walking back toward the tents after meeting with the Howlies; **art by:** nalonzooo

*

There’s a disconnect in Thor’s brain.

He watches the young man—it isn’t him, it _cannot be_ him—as he tends to the bandaged soldier on the bed. The young man is tall and thin, with long, jet black hair that is pulled back with a tie, but is curling near the ends where it brushes against his shoulders. He’s dressed in the same olive-colored army clothing that all of the soldiers wear, although his is slightly different. The young man wears a white armband with a bright red cross in the center, stark and contrasting against the drab color of his uniform. He smiles at the patient, a small, soft uptick at the corners of his mouth. It’s an expression Thor has not seen for centuries, but it is a familiar one all the same. Thor knows the shape of that mouth and the curve of that nose. He knows the sharp angle of that jaw and the slant of those high cheekbones. He knows those bright green eyes.

It cannot be him, but it _is_ him. There is no one else it could be.

Thor takes a deep, shaky breath, and then his brain fizzles offline.

Loki gathers the used, bloodied bandages in his arms and crosses the medical tent to throw them away and Thor chases him.

  
“Loki!” Thor cries, running as fast as he can. “Brother! It’s me!”

At first, Loki must not hear him. There is always so much noise at the camp, this is no surprise.

“Brother!” Thor yells, running faster across the dirt. “Loki!”

Thor’s voice is a loud bellow and soon everyone is turning to stare at him. Loki finally stops and turns, startled. His expression is wide and open, his dark brows furrowed in confusion.

“Loki!” Thor says again and, slightly out of breath, skids to a halt in front of his brother. He stumbles a little, but regains his balance and then he has his hands on his brother’s narrow shoulders. “Loki, what are you doing here? Is it truly you? Is this one of your tricks? Brother, you do not know how happy I am to see—”

The words die in his throat as Thor watches his brother’s expression go from confusion to concern. He looks both annoyed and perplexed. There is not a flicker of recognition in those familiar green eyes.

“Loki?” Thor asks, haltingly.

“I’m sorry,” Loki says, his mouth twisted into a frown. “Do I know you?”

  
It’s a terrible thing, to lose your brother. It is a worse thing to be forgotten by him.

There is some rational explanation here. Something too obvious for Thor to see and harder for him to acknowledge. He has been sad for so long, he is desperate for anything that gives him something that he wants— _anything_ that he wants—so he ignores it, this niggling at the back of his mind.

“I’m—it is me, Thor,” Thor says, uncertainly. Then he realizes and brightens. “You must not recognize me. I do not how it happened, but I am suddenly a Midgardian and they have shorn my hair short. But it’s still me. It’s your brother.”

The frown that presses at the edge of Loki’s mouth takes on a sharper quality, as though he’s irritated for some reason.

“Brother?” he says. “I have one brother and his name is Hellbindi.”

“Hellbindi…?” Thor asks with deepening confusion. “Who is Hellbindi?”

“My brother,” Loki says, with annoyance. “As I just said.”

“Hellbindi is not your brother,” Thor says stupidly. “I’m your brother. Me. Thor.”

Loki’s annoyance doesn’t lessen. He continues over to the garbage and dumps all of the bloodied bandages inside.

“I know who you are,” Loki says.

Thor breathes out in relief. He smiles.

“So this was one of your tricks. You really had me going, I thought—”

“You’re one of the Howling Commandos,” Loki says, turning on his heels back toward Thor. His expression...well it isn’t particularly fond.

“I—” Thor says. “Suppose?”

“It’s on your patch,” Loki says, gesturing at Thor’s uniform. “Odinson. Howling Commando.”

Thor looks at his brother dumbly and Loki crosses his arms.

“One of Captain America’s chosen companions. Heralded by everyone. Disciplined by no one.”

“What?” Thor blinks.

“I know of you all and I know what you’ve done for the country and I also know that you’re loud and crass and are always taking needless risks that _we_ have to deal with the consequences for,” Loki says, somewhat angrily. His eyes flash. Definitely angrily.

Thor doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He also doesn’t know why Loki’s angry at him, but that, at least, is something familiar.

“We…?”

“The Medics,” Loki glares. “You go and get yourselves hurt or you take others and they get hurt and then do you know who has to clean them up? Or send them to a field hospital? Or log them in our books as deceased so that their families can be sent a condolence letter and a purple heart in a box, as a substitute for their son, who would otherwise be living?”

There’s so much anger in Loki’s voice, so much hurt and venom—and Thor is used to it, in a way, but not about this. He’s so confused and all he really wants is for his brother to remember him.

“Loki, I don’t know what—” he tries, but Loki waves him off.

“I don’t know how you learned my name, Odinson, and I don’t care. Leave me alone,” Loki says. “I want nothing to do with you or with your group of arrogant idiots.”

Loki strides away from him, back down the medical tent toward another patient and Thor waits only a moment before chasing him again.

“Loki, listen, I do not know what I have done for you to be so angry with me and I do not know why you are pretending not to know me, but—”

Loki stops mid-stride and Thor nearly rams into his back. His brother turns again and this time, nearly furious, jabs a finger into Thor’s chest.

“I _don’t_ know you,” he says. “And I don’t want to know you. Leave me _alone_.”

Thor opens his mouth and then immediately closes it, stunned.

Loki turns again and strides away from him, leaving Thor with too many questions and, in truth, an equal amount of heartache.

  
It’s not his Loki, Thor realizes after his second beer.

He forgoes dinner to drink instead, which no one seems to comment on because they are in the middle of a war and sometimes men at war need to drink. It’s perfect for him, in a way, which is funny, because Thor had lived through the war and was now drinking to forget it. Maybe this is, in a roundabout way, the unacknowledged truth of it—that despite what he thought, his war had never ended at all. That Thanos had been defeated, but Thor was still caught in battle with him.

It’s _a_ Loki, but it isn’t his one.

 _Great_ , Thor thinks morosely. _That is perfectly useless to me._

He lets out a great sigh and drains his beer.

* * *


	5. Chapter Five. [ first oddity: world war ii ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This Loki is not his and if it _is_ his and he is just playing a cruel trick on his older brother, knowing they have both lost everything, then he does not _want_ him to be his and honestly, perhaps he hates Loki anyway, he did stab him all of those times and—
> 
> “You again,” Loki says, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
> 
> “Loki!” Thor says, voice a beat too bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (???) Monday, readers! Thank you so much for your sweet enthusiasm for this fic--it means the world to me! And multiple worlds to Bucky and Thor, I think.

Once Thor realizes that Loki isn’t _his_ Loki, he rapidly loses interest in him. He certainly does not ask the others about him. (“Who, Laufeyson?” Jones laughs as Morita shudders next to him. “Oh, he’s been here this entire time. Pleasant sort of guy, isn’t he?” “If you want a dagger between your lungs,” Falsworth says, while smoking, and Dugan laughs beside him.) He definitely does not go out of his way to walk by the medical tent. (“Odinson!” the small one by the name of Private finds him again. “Oh, do you need medical assistance? If this one’s full, you might try the other one.” “There’s another one?” Thor asks, in alarm. “There’s at least four,” Private says. “We used to have just the one, but then they sent us more medics because there were too many loose limbs in that one.”)

And even if he were to care, just a little bit, that there is a Loki in a different timeline—walking around—with no memory of who he was or otherwise could be—but _alive_ —then it is surely a passing thing, not something that keeps him up at night when he drags his bedroll out from inside the tent so that he can stare up at the stars and wonder if Asgard is still up there and if they would take him and Loki back, even fallen as they are.

Thor does not do any of that, because Thor does not care.

This Loki is not his and if it _is_ his and he is just playing a cruel trick on his older brother, knowing they have both lost everything, then he does not _want_ him to be his and honestly, perhaps he hates Loki anyway, he did stab him all of those times and—

“You again,” Loki says, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Loki!” Thor says, voice a beat too bright.

Loki is holding a cup of coffee between his hands. It’s too early in the morning, the dining tent filled only with people who are just going to sleep or who have had to report too early before shipping out somewhere else. Thor is neither, but Thor also could not sleep.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Loki says and drinks his coffee with deliberation.

Thor can’t help the smile that appears on his face. It comes, unbidden. He hides it in his own cup.

“When did I say I wanted to talk to you?” he says, with a fake grumble.

“What are you doing?” Loki says, suddenly.

Thor blinks and takes a seat across from him on the bench.

“Drinking coffee,” Thor says. “Is that not allowed for a Commando either?”

“Not that,” Loki says. He waves at him. “What are you _doing_?”

“Sitting?” Thor says. “Honestly, Loki, what is the matter with you?”

“Do not be familiar with me,” Loki says. “Why are you sitting here? There are other empty tables. Go sit at one of them.”

“I like this one,” Thor says. He takes a large gulp of coffee and smacks his lips. “The lighting is agreeable here.”

Loki glares at him.

“ _I don’t want to talk to you_ ,” he repeats and Thor gives him a mild look. Distantly, he remembers this—this very look, used as a weapon to rile up his brother when they were younger and Loki was wound up—always wound up about something—and it worked, every time, just as it’s working now.

That makes Thor smile again, despite his best efforts otherwise, and this Loki doesn’t seem to like it any better than his Loki did. “Why are you smiling? Do you take pleasure in ruining others’ mornings?”

“Am I ruining your morning?” Thor asks, raising an eyebrow. “By sitting here? Drinking my coffee?”

“Yes!” Loki splutters, turning a little pink around the edges and Thor _really_ can’t help it—he laughs. He just tilts his head back and laughs, too loud for however early in the morning it is and definitely too loud for the sleepy dining tent.

For some reason, this flusters Loki, because he stands up abruptly, turning pink and sucking in an angry breath.

“Leave me alone!” Loki says and hurriedly extracts himself from the bench.

“Loki—no—I’m sorry—!” Thor says, but it’s through laughter and it feels so good—the laughter and the familiarity of this routine—that he can’t even feel too bad about it.

“If you come to my tent, I will let you bleed to death,” Loki says, waspishly. He slams his coffee cup down on the tray of dirty dishware and turns on his heels—a familiar move then, and with growing rapidity, now.

“Loki, don’t go—!” Thor tries to call, but Loki doesn’t listen to him.

He stalks out of the tent and Thor tips his face into his hands and laughs some more.

  
The next time he sees Loki is later that afternoon, when Thor is with Dugan, headed toward the Strategy tent, and Loki is walking toward them, presumably to get to the Medical tent.

Thor cuts off mid-sentence with Dugan the moment he realizes their paths will intersect and then his face brightens. For his part, Loki stops dead in his tracks and his face immediately turns pink.

“Loki!” Thor says, loudly.

“No!” Loki says. He has supplies in his arms, but he starts hurriedly backing up.

“Loki, where are you going?” Thor says, even louder.

“Yes, Loki, where are you going?” Dugan—who does not know Loki—grins and calls after him.

Loki throws them both a look that would fell lesser men, but Thor was once more than a lesser man and he is currently in too good a mood, having seen his brother again, to be stymied.

Loki continues backing up, passing tents quickly in the direction he came from and which, ironically, is the direction Thor and Dugan are headed.

“The medical tent is in the other direction!” Thor says, laughing. “Oh, where are you going? We are coming in your direction, you silly—”

Loki lets out a little noise—somewhere between a shriek and a frustrated squeak—and then dives sideways off the path and in between two tents.

“What on Earth did you do to that man?” Dugan asks, eyes wide.

“Existed, I think,” Thor says, grinning.

“Aye, been there,” Dugan says, sagely. They slowly approach the place Loki had dove and find him gone. He must have scurried away through the aisle between the tents, his arms still full of medical supplies. “What a strange man.”

“If you knew the half of it,” Thor says, looking down the empty aisle as though to follow him.

“Later, old friend,” Dugan says and slings an arm over Thor’s shoulder. “Cap will throw a fit if we’re late...again.”

“I’ve never known Steve Rogers to throw a fit,” Thor says thoughtfully.

“Well, someone will throw a fit anyway,” Dugan says. “Maybe Morita. Possibly me.”

Thor, who has barely heard Morita speak two sentences in the past three days doubts the former. The latter, though, he does not doubt at all.

  
After the meeting, long after dinner, Thor makes his way back to his tent. The night air is cooler than the humidity of the day and, like the past few nights, the stars spread out above them against the dark, cloudless sky, a billion pricks of light that Thor can see without any trouble.

He’s thinking about the stars and he’s thinking about Asgard and he’s thinking about how relieved he is to have finally found Bucky again and how they will find a way out of this place in two days’ time, when he hears a tired and indignant noise to his back.

Thor, just in front of his tent, blinks and turns.

Loki has his arms crossed at his chest.

“Are you following me?”

Thor, for once, is caught off guard. Surprised, he shakes his head.

“Loki, no—I’m sorry, this is my tent,” he says. “It is not my intention to stalk you, I promise.”

Loki looks suspicious, but slightly less wound up than earlier.

“That’s your tent?” he asks.

“Yes,” Thor says. “I promise. It has been mine for...a while—are you nearby?”

Loki’s expression flickers between something dubious and then resignation. He jerks his head across the aisle.

“A row over,” he says. He frowns. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”

“Luck?” Thor offers, with a smile. He’s too tired to tease at this point. “I was just going in. I’ll be out of your way. Goodnight, Loki—”

“Wait,” Loki says, quickly.

Thor, his hand to the opening of his tent, pauses.

“I’m sorry,” Loki says, after a moment. Thor feels surprise for the second time that night and Loki, arms still crossed at his chest, shifts on his feet and lets out a sigh. “I overreacted, earlier. I hadn’t slept much, not that that’s an excuse and—you and your friends are odious, of course, but I shouldn’t have taken my bad mood out on you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Thor, who has been apologized to by Loki so few times in his life—at least in the recent few centuries, when everything had gone wrong—almost forgets himself and asks Loki if he’s been replaced by a Skrull. He catches himself just in time, and just stares instead. It’s awkward, but less incriminating.

“What?” Loki says, annoyance already creeping into his voice. “Say something.”

Thor opens his mouth and then closes it. He shakes his head and smiles.

“Thank you,” is what he says. Nice and normal.

Loki lets out another sigh and his shoulders deflate. He seems like he’s had a long day too.

“Well, goodnight, then,” he says. He turns to go, but Thor can’t bear it.

“Do you ever just stare at the sky?” Thor asks.

Loki, pausing, gives him a weird look. Well, fair enough. Thor supposes it’s a strange statement to be asked by a stranger.

“We’re here, fighting this war, and—but if you look up, on one of these nights, it feels so—” Thor can’t really put it into words properly. “What if you lived a thousand years. Two thousand years. And you lived up there, somewhere far away.”

“In the stars?” Loki asks.

“On another realm...planet,” Thor says. He tilts his head up and after a moment, can tell Loki’s done the same. “Far from here. Perhaps it is a kingdom, a beautiful one. And you sit there and there is a bridge, connected to a great seeing...apparatus. And you can see all the realms from there.”

“There are others?” Loki asks, softly.

“Sure,” Thor says. “There is Earth, of course. And the one we—you live on.”

“What’s that one called?” Loki asks.

“Asgard,” Thor says.

A pause.

“Asgard,” Loki says. Thor hears him shift. He’s still looking up at the sky. “What do I do there?”

“Anything you like,” Thor says softly. “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. You are royalty, you see. A prince, later a king.”

“I don’t think I would be a good king,” Loki says, with a slight laugh.

It makes something hurt in Thor, a soft, slow ache blooming under his ribs.

“But you are a king nonetheless,” Thor says. “A good one, in your own way. You live on Asgard at the end of a bridge made of a rainbow and you look onto the other realms—Vanaheim and Jotunheim and Nornheim and Svartalfheim, even—”

“That’s a funny name,” Loki says.

Thor looks over at him and his face is still tilted up, as though enchanted. He looks young, this Loki, untouched by greater wars and jealous brothers and hard fathers and secrets that never should have been kept. He’s hardened by other things, but they’re smaller in scope and leave smaller marks. His eyes are clear here, the lines of his face tired, but less sad. His face glows in the moonlight.

Thor hopes he can keep it, this Loki. This innocence.

“The dark elves live there,” Thor says, quietly. “You hate them.”

“I do?” Loki asks and this time, he turns away from the stars to look back at Thor. His face is shining, his mouth soft.

“Yes,” Thor says. “They took everything from you.”

Loki should frown. His expression should cloud over with skepticism. He does none of these things.

“I hate them,” he says, softly.

Thor swallows.

“Is it good, up there?” Loki asks. “On Asgard?”

Thor sways on his feet. It opens up in him, his grief—his home, his family, everything he has ever had and so, lost. He is nearly pulled under, just like that, just by a single question.

Loki touches his elbow and it brings him back, reels him back into his body.

“Thor?” he asks, with concern. “Are you all right?”

Thor swallows, his throat dry. He nods.

“It’s good,” he says. “Asgard. It’s the most beautiful place you have ever seen.”

Loki looks—not stricken, but worn away. His eyes are sad, as is his mouth, as are the lines of his body.

“I hope it’s good,” Loki says. “I hope it’s better than here.”

Thor doesn’t know what to say to that and after a moment, the magic of the moment—whatever has held them here, in suspension, for so long—breaks.

Loki tugs off his Medic patch and gives Thor a tired smile.

“Goodnight, Thor,” he says.

Thor nods.

“Goodnight, Loki,” he says.

He watches Loki go and, after a while, slips back into his own tent.

He doesn’t take his bedroll out under the sky tonight. He doesn’t think he could bear it.

*

  
**art:** Loki as a Medic, his face tilted up to watch the stars; **art by:** nalonzooo

*

They meet an hour after the last dinner shift, when the evening has long since given away to night. Thor is standing by the dining tent, leaning against one of the poles as though it will take his weight, which, Bucky guesses, it will since he’s just human here like the rest of them.

He has a thoughtful expression on his face and he’s not drinking, which is either a positive sign or a sign that he’s lost his will altogether. Either way, Bucky is surprisingly happy to see him.

“Hey,” he says.

Thor tears himself away from whatever he’s thinking about and straightens.

“Bucky,” he says.

The two of them look at one another for a moment and then laugh.

“What the hell,” Bucky says, chuckling and runs a hand through his curls, which are frizzing in the humidity. “How did we get here? What the fuck?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Thor says, shaking his head.

Bucky had thought the Norse God would have been more distressed by all of this and, in all honesty, he had looked it when they had first fallen into this timeline—God, what, five days ago?

He looks different now, though. Not _completely_ , just enough. Something has changed.

“I think—” Bucky says and tries to think back. The airpod, the alien planet—all of that seems like a lifetime ago now, somehow. It’s been the shortest and longest and strangest five days of his life. And he was space dust a couple of years ago. “That space patch we hit. Remember?”

Thor squints and also looks as though he’s struggling to recall.

“Ah,” he says. “When the ship spun out of control.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I don’t know what that was, but I think—that’s why we’re here.”

Thor crosses his large arms across his large chest and moves from one foot to the other. Then he uncrosses them.

“A tear in time?” he asks.

“Maybe?” Bucky says. He doesn’t know about any of that. This is space and Norse Gods and aliens and different timelines and—nothing he’s ever known outside of his science fiction pulps. “I don’t know how.”

“Me neither,” Thor says. “I have never heard of such a thing. When Stark was looking for a way to change the past, he had to...create it. I have never heard of it simply appearing in the middle of space.”

Bucky shrugs.

“I’m not really the alien here,” he says, wryly. He exhales and gestures. “Want to walk and talk? I’m restless.”

Thor nods. They move away from the dining tent and walk the well-worn dirt paths of the encampment.

They talk about small things at first—the food here and the war and Peggy Carter and Chester Phillips and the Howling Commandos. Then Thor puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky’s resigned to look up at the tall blond.

“Steve,” Thor says. “Have you spoken to him?”

Bucky sucks in a breath. Then he nods.

“He’s not—” Bucky says and stops. His lips are dry. He licks them to soften. “It’s not my Steve. I mean, it’s not the Steve we know. It’s a different one. One who grew up different. Without me.”

Thor looks at Bucky with empathy, but he doesn’t look surprised.

“I found Loki,” he says, simply.

Bucky’s eyes widen.

“What?”

Thor gives him a thin smile and nods.

“My brother, Loki,” he says. “But it is the same as with the Captain. He isn’t my brother here. He is...just another Loki. A different one. He is not a God and he does not know Asgard. He is simply...a human.”

“Like you,” Bucky says.

“Like me,” Thor agrees.

It doesn’t make sense, is the frustrating thing. If they’re in a different timeline, then everything should be the _same_. It should be them, in the past, with Steve, and Bucky should be a Howlie and Thor should be someone who doesn’t exist and Loki—he shouldn’t be here, not in any form. Steve should have grown up with someone. He should have grown up with Bucky.

“What if it’s not another timeline?” Bucky says slowly.

Thor’s golden brows knit together.

“What else would it be, then?” he asks.

“Maybe it’s a...dream,” Bucky says. He chews on a thumbnail and then it comes to him. “What if it’s a different re—”

“There you are!” a loud, booming voice comes across from them and both Thor and Bucky jump.

“Jesus fuck,” Bucky curses and crushes a palm to his chest.

“Dugan,” Thor says, with a quick smile.

“It’s starting,” Dum Dum says.

“Starting?” Bucky blinks. “What’s starting?”

“Yes, all right, I suppose you can come too, Buckingham,” Dum Dum says.

“Buchanan,” Bucky says. “James Buc—”

Dum Dum flaps a hand in his face, interrupting him. Then, with a jovial look on his face, he claps his large hands on both of their shoulders and steers them—pushes them, really—all the way across the base, to the campfire.

  
Bucky had forgotten. It had been such a long time ago and so much has happened since then, it had simply fallen out of his mind. That’s what he tries to tell himself, but in truth, he had been so fucked up after Azzano that it isn’t time or brainwashing that makes him forget, it’s the simple fact that he hadn’t had the heart to be there when he _was_ there and after, it had been easier to not remember.

The Howling Commandos, by the campfire, the night before every large mission. Logs placed around the fire, alcohol and nicked food passed around, money exchanging hands. Dum Dum standing on his log, starting a chorus that begins with his offkey voice and ends with Morita, the surprising songbird among them, quiet and sweet, with a voice that would have them tilting their heads back and breathing in the stars.

Falsworth passing around one of his precious cigarettes and everyone taking a drag—even Steve, who hadn’t had a cigarette since his asthma had gone away, with a quick, practiced drag, and a face—real cigarettes taste nothing like asthma cigarettes—a smile curving up the corners of his mouth, his eyes bright in the firelight, the cigarette between his fingers and then leaning closer to Bucky—Bucky, who had sat down next to him, even after Azzano, even after he had come back, broken and fucked up, barely able to talk, less able to smile—and saying _Your turn, Buck_. Steve, passing the cigarette to Bucky and Steve’s fingers brushing Bucky’s fingers and Bucky taking a quick breath in and—

They’re all around the campfire now, Dum Dum not yet standing and Morita drinking deeply and Jones with his head tucked close to Falsworth, who seems to be in a dark mood, one of those moods only Gabe Jones could charm him out of.

Across from him, Thor sits on a log, his legs spread wide and someone hands him jerky and he grins, thanks him, and takes a mouthful.

A moment later, Thor’s eyes flicker up. Bucky doesn’t know him—he’s never met him—but he remembers seeing the news in the middle of his brainwashed haze, has seen the photos since, can understand, now, the look on Thor’s face earlier.

Loki gives Thor a wry smile and a roll of his eyes and sits next to him on the log. Thor folds his legs in and makes room for him. He leans over to tell him something and Loki glares at him before maneuvering the jerky from Thor’s fingers, somehow. He bites into it, daring Thor to say something, but Thor just laughs, his expression fond.

It catches in Bucky’s chest and he presses his palm against it again, over his heart, rubbing the same spot over and over as though it will make it better—will make this better.

“Mind if I sit here?” a deep voice says.

Bucky looks up and there he is, firelight licking up his sides, catching in his golden hair, the orange-red glow lighting up the light blue of his eyes, a shy smile on his mouth.

Bucky shifts over and Steve takes a seat.

“They tried to trade my life for more beer,” Bucky leans over and says into Steve’s ear. “Your men. Just so you know.”

Steve colors slightly and laughs.

“Is that so?”

“I just wanted you to know the quality you’re working with here,” Bucky says. “The loyalty.”

Steve smiles.

“They’re good men,” he says. “But they would sell me to the lowest bidder for a drink.”

“You know, I can respect that,” Bucky says and Steve laughs again.

Bucky smiles.

“How do you feel?” he asks, after a moment.

“In general or…?”

“The upcoming campaign,” Bucky says. “In general. What should I tell your adoring public?”

Steve’s smile is soft, but thin. In all honesty, it’s brittle, barely there. He pulls his knees together and rests his fingers, clasped together, on top.

In front of them, the fire gives a sharp crackle.

“Do they?” Steve asks.

“Do they what?” Bucky says.

“Adore me,” Steve says.

“You’re Captain America,” Bucky says.

That smile again. He takes a breath and stretches his legs.

“Right,” he says. “I guess they do adore him.”

Bucky doesn’t know what that means. To him, Steve is Cap and Cap is Steve. They’re indistinguishable to him, not as an entity, but in that they are the same person—good at their core, motivated by the same thing, wearing a suit, maybe, and carrying out an agenda, sure, but still led by the same core principles, the same guiding heart.

Captain America is a title, he thinks, but Steve as Captain America is Steve Rogers. And vice versa.

“Do you have someone back home, Bucky?” Steve asks, suddenly.

Bucky’s expression is surprised.

“I’m sorry if that’s personal, it’s just that—” Steve exhales and looks across the campfire. Dum Dum is in some kind of drinking game with Falsworth now and Morita and Jones sit side-by-side in the dirt, heads bent close, Morita showing Jones how to do the knife trick, but better.

Thor and Loki sit on their log, Loki smothering the reluctant smile on his face with a hand, and Thor bright—brighter than Bucky has seen him so far.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Steve says. “If something goes wrong—if something happens in the middle of the mission.” He takes a breath. “Dugan and Morita have wives, Falsworth’s got some girl he’s gotten himself engaged to. Jones, well, he doesn’t have anyone like that, but he has a younger brother who writes to him every week.”

Bucky picks at a spare thread on his pants.

He hates this. He hates it because he remembers it, him in a trench with three guys, each with a picture tucked close, a necklace, a ring in promise. Bucky remembers being there with them, blasts ricocheting around them, fear like lead on their tongues, and he has something too—not a picture or a ring, but a letter. A letter in handwriting he’s had his entire life to memorize, words he’s read a hundred times, a faded sketch on dirty paper that’s worn thin with how many times he’s opened and closed it.

Bucky shakes his head, but Steve isn’t paying attention.

“Who would get my letter?” Steve asks, quietly. “The purple heart they’d give me. Where would they mail that?”

Bucky, stricken, looks up at him.

“Steve,” he says, horrified, but Steve just gives him a sad smile. Bucky tries to gather his wits and presses a shoulder against his. “Carter. What about her?”

“Peggy?” Steve says, frowning. “What about her?”

Bucky frowns and searches his face.

“Isn’t she yours?” Bucky asks. “Your sweetheart?”

Steve laughs softly.

“Is that what they all think?” he shakes his head. “Agent Carter and I are just colleagues. And friends. Good friends, sometimes. But there’s nothing else between us.”

 _Why not?_ Bucky wants to ask, but he doesn’t think he wants to know the answer.

“So, do you have one?” Steve asks and this time he’s the one leaning into Bucky. Steve turns his head and Bucky catches it then, the glimmer of the fire in his eyes, the glow curving around his jaw. The moonlight in his hair, the gentle press in the space between his eyebrows. “A sweetheart?”

The smudge of light against the curve of his mouth. The warm air sticking to his skin.

Steve, an expression on his face that is held so close, kept back so carefully that it’s only there if you look for it. Bucky can see it now, because he knows how to look.

Steve, in this world—maybe in that world, maybe in the past and in the future, and here, in front of him, in the present—whatever _present_ means for them now—so deeply lonely, and so terribly afraid of being alone.

Bucky didn’t realize.

All of this time, he thought he had the monopoly on loneliness.

“No,” Bucky says, his mouth dry. “I don’t have one either.”

“Oh,” Steve says. He watches Bucky for another moment and then it’s gone—the look and the feeling—tucked all the way back inside of Steve as Captain America, his shoulders drawn up, and his mouth curved up in a smile that doesn’t reach anywhere warm. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, a hand on his shoulder. He turns his whole body toward him, trying to say—he doesn’t know what, but knowing he has to fucking say _something_ , find some way to get that look off his face, some way to pry him open again, breathe life back into him, and—

Something glitters.

“Bucky?” Steve frowns.

Bucky looks confused, but it happens again, out of the corner of his eyes.

He turns properly this time, searching, and then—there. In the ashes, near the burned out cinders of the fire.

It’s bright blue, glimmering in the dark. Bucky doesn’t know what it is, not really, not _definitionally_ , but he thinks he knows in some other sense. After all, he’s seen the gauntlet before. He knows what a stone looks like.

“Thor,” Bucky says loudly, quickly.

Steve looks up at him in confusion as Bucky scrambles to his feet. Across the fire, everyone looks up at him, including Thor.

“Yes?” Thor, in the middle of saying something to Loki, gives him a look.

Bucky crouches down near the fire, his knees digging into the dirt, and he reaches forward and there—yes, that’s—

It shifts, suddenly. Not the blue stone—the piece of blue _something_ , like a shard of glass, but stronger, the power radiating off of it so strongly Bucky has to shield his eyes against it.

Bucky closes his hand around it anyway and there’s a sharp tug in his navel, a shift, a realignment, a reimagining. He nearly cries out, his head feeling as though it’s splitting down the middle, his eyes burning, his breath coming up short.

He looks at Thor, panicked, and Thor is up and to him as space and time shift around them, and between them, the air starts to eat away at itself.

“Thor?” Loki says, panicked.

“Bucky!” Steve shouts and everyone is to their feet.

Thor grasps Bucky’s wrist and gasps as it rattles into him too—the weird, surging, realigning power.

The air in front of them opens up, a rending in space, black and glittering, bright, white light billowing out, like a billion stars in a stretch of space cut through the middle of their campsite.

Thor looks back at Loki and Bucky can see his expression—regretful, torn, and sad. Another Loki found and another Loki lost.

“Buck?” Steve says and now it’s Bucky’s turn to bite his tongue.

Bucky reaches forward, his free hand grazing Steve’s face.

“Be well, Steve,” he says.

He wishes he could say more. He wishes they had more time. But he’s found a piece of an Infinity Stone and their time here has run out.

Bucky doesn’t get a chance to hear Steve’s answer.

The rattling grows impossibly stronger, vibrating up and down their arms until their teeth clatter and their skulls shake, a shimmering purple and blue haze enveloping them. Thor shouts his name and the wormhole grows larger and larger, and with an unearthly sound, the haze swallows Thor and Bucky all the way up.  
  


* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be thinking about Nikki's gorgeous art of Loki until the end of my days, probably. THE STARLIGHT ON HIS FACE?? HELLO??


	6. Chapter Six. [ second oddity: jotunheim ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What the _fuck_?” he growls out loud and that’s when he notices the last thing.
> 
> Bucky shoves both of his arms out in front of him and stares, a sensation of horror creeping up the back of his neck. Neither of his arms are metal. 
> 
> They are both, however, blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Second Oddity: Jotunheim. FROST GIANTS, LET'S GO.

* * *

Thor groans. His head is pounding, like someone has taken one of those horribly loud Midgardian tools used to break the surface of streets and turned it, instead, onto his skull. His throat is dry and his skin feels as though someone—perhaps the same person as before—has taken sandpaper and run it over the top, multiple times, and with intention. It hurts and his blood sparks and there’s a feeling inside his organs as though they are being pulled at high velocity through a tunnel while his body has been left behind at the entrance.

Someone shakes his shoulder.

Thor groans louder.

“Thor,” the voice says, too-loud and too-close to his ear.

“No,” he mumbles, in pain. “Later.”

The voice ignores him. “Thor, wake up!”

Thor lets out a noise of pure disgruntlement and, with a superhuman amount of effort, manages to push himself up to his elbows. It takes another ten seconds for him to pry his eyes—which, he is certain, have been glued shut—open.

His eyeballs also seem to immediately protest this disturbance because everything is blurred colors and strange shapes before he rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes and then, slowly, the room comes into focus.

Something flickers in Thor’s subconscious—familiarity, or deja vu, or simply, confusion.

“Where am I?” he asks, staring around at the familiar library.

The shelves are tall and the rows narrow, filled with dark tomes both thin and thick, the ceiling high and the windows large and thrown open.

He’s braced against a thick table of sturdy wood; it is a familiar table, just as the shelves are familiar and the high ceiling is familiar and the curved, gilded frames of the windows prickle the back of his mind. The rows carry memories too—there is just enough space between them for two little princes to lose themselves playing hide-and-seek.

There’s something carved into the wood by his thumb, small and nearly indecipherable.

A rune. _Thurisaz._

Thor.

His temples throb.

“How much did you drink last night?” the person who has shaken him awake says. “You’re usually in better shape than this.”

“We’re back,” Thor mumbles out loud. His mouth is so dry his tongue sticks to the roof of it. He pries it away clumsily, words thick on his tongue. “But how? It was...destroyed. How can it be?”

“We didn’t go anywhere,” the person says. “What’s destroyed?”

Thor’s brows furrow in confusion. The person—Bucky Barnes, Thor remembers now, sluggishly—Bucky puts a large hand on his shoulder and wheels him around.

“Hey,” Bucky says. “Are you all right?”

No, wait, that isn’t right.

Barnes doesn’t have blond hair or blue eyes or a strong jaw set only half as stubborn as he himself is.

“Steve...?” Thor asks, with increasing confusion.

“Yeah,” Steve says and gives him an uncertain smile. “You remember me?”

“Of course,” Thor says. He touches his head, feeling for a bump that might explain why he is hallucinating or how he got here. “Are you real? Where have you been? How did you get here—on Asgard? We have been looking everywhere for you. Where is Bucky?”

Steve tilts his head just slightly—in confusion, or concern or, something misplaced that Thor can’t identify because his head hurts so much.

“We’ve always been on Asgard, your highness,” Steve says. He pauses. “What is Bucky?”

Thor’s sense of disorientation increases.

He pushes himself up, stumbling to his feet and then almost into Steve. Steve catches him in time, a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him from falling.

“I must find him,” Thor says urgently. “He’s—this isn’t right. Something is wrong.”

“What’s wrong?” Steve says and his voice is so familiar, tight with concern. “Thor—your highness, are you all right? You’re acting strangely. Should I get your mother?”

“My mother?” Thor says, frowning, and shakes his head. “No, no my mother is dead. My mother and my father and my brother are all dead and I need to—”

“What?” Steve says sharply and Thor stops. Steve’s look of concern has taken on the severe edge of something who believes he is witnessing his friend finally lose his mind. His fingers tighten around Thor’s shoulder. “Thor, your mother isn’t dead, she’s in her chambers, presumably preparing to receive your guests. Your father is with her, I’d guess. You should be getting ready too. Are you all right?”

“What?”

“That’s why I’m here,” Steve says. “To make sure. You’re going to be late.”

“She isn’t dead?” Thor asks and something painful unfurls in his chest—hope, blooming, the most reckless and terrible thing of all. “And father? He lives? But...how? Receive who? Late to what?”

It’s only at this that Steve’s expression lightens. He eases his painful grip on Thor’s arm and finally, he breaks into a relieved smile.

“Oh, all right, I get it now,” he says. “ _Norns_ , you had me worried.”

Thor shakes his head, touches his temple.

“You do?” Thor says, dumbly. “Get what?”

Steve gives him a familiar look—exasperated or resigned or...used to him, in a way.

“I know you’re nervous, old friend, but it won’t be as terrible as all that. Not enough to make up stories and anyway you won’t be able to fool Odin or Frigga,” Steve says. He lets go of Thor, finally stable on his feet.

“I mean I know we’ve grown up hearing stories about them and how tall and cold and cruel they are and, well, I know the red eyes aren’t exactly attractive, but...I’m sure they can’t all be that bad.”

“Steve, please,” Thor says and gestures to his head. “I have a headache. Be clear.”

Steve looks at him funny.

“The Jotun delegation,” he says.

Something makes the back of Thor’s mind itch, something he can’t quite understand. It’s there, just out of reach, like a shelf put just an inch too high. He almost has it though, and he tries to think around his nausea—him, here on Asgard, and his mother and his father alive, and Steve, who is Aesir? Asgard, whole. His home, not destroyed. But how? And Bucky is nowhere to be found and—the Prince of Jotunheim?

If he could just find the answer, but then, he can’t even think of the question. It’s there, he’s so close. He grits his teeth, trying to think around the pain and Steve looks at him, impatiently, as though he’s waiting, as though they are—

 _Oh._ Thor thinks. There it is.

“You said we will be late,” Thor breathes. “Late for what?”

For a moment, Steve doesn’t say anything, just looks him over carefully, a hand braced against Thor’s back to keep him steady. Then he gives him a kind look.

“Your wedding, Thor,” Steve says. “To the prince of Jotunheim.”

Oh. Thor thinks again.

And then: well, fuck.

*

The first thing Bucky notices is that he’s terribly cold. Like, veins-deep, bone rattling, breath fogging cold. He’s not just cold, he’s _freezing_. He’s not just freezing, he is aching.

The second thing is that he likes it that way.

Bucky groans and shoves his face into plush cushions and is annoyed when it doesn’t do what he wants it to.

That’s when he notices the third thing.

Bucky reaches up with his right hand to touch his forehead and finds his fingers curling around something curved and smooth, jutting out where it should be flat. The brush of his fingers causes a spritz of electricity up and down his spine, a jolt in his stomach that leaves him gasping.

His eyes fly open then and he shoves himself up on the couch as quickly as he can.

“What the _fuck_?” he growls out loud and that’s when he notices the last thing.

Bucky shoves both of his arms out in front of him and stares, a sensation of horror creeping up the back of his neck. Neither of his arms are metal.

They are both, however, blue.

His heart beating rapidly, Bucky shoves his legs out from under the fur blankets covering his body and sucks in a breath as he’s greeted by more cool, blue skin.

“What the fuck?” Bucky repeats to himself and that’s when he sees the rest of it too—his bare blue chest and the ridges set into his skin, black ink curving up his sides and long, dark brown hair down to blue shoulders. He touches his face and it’s cold as ice. He feels his way up his cheekbones and temples until his fingertips brush them again—the horns on his head.

Bucky hisses and bolts to his feet, his groin twisting sharply at the sensation.

“Thor!” he whisper-shouts and spins, looking for him. “ _Thor_ , what the f—”

There’s a soft moan from somewhere behind him and someone rustling in silk sheets.

“Oh, do shut up,” the person says and turns back over.

Bucky hasn’t known Thor for very long, but he knows his deep, accented voice by now and this one...did not belong to him.

Cursing internally, Bucky looks around the room looking for an exit. He doesn’t know where the fuck he is, but if he doesn’t get out of here before whoever is behind him wakes up fully, he’s going to get shot through the fucking eyes because he has blue fucking skin and long nails and horns and Bucky knows, in an unquestionable kind of way, that the worst kind of home invader is the alien kind.

The room he’s in is larger than he can comprehend—cavernous, really, with blue-white walls so light that they look carved from ice. There’s a room with a fancy looking couch and a table—the room he had woken up in—and there’s an open archway leading to a larger room with an enormous bed in the middle. There are wardrobes along the walls and plenty of full-length mirrors and all along the left side of the room are windows that stretch from the ground all the way to the ceiling.

They’re glass doors, Bucky realizes stupidly, and they’re open. The white curtains stir in the breeze and beyond them, Bucky can see a large balcony that stretches the entire length of the room. The sky is dark, but lightening rapidly, a faint lavender seeping up through a navy so dark it’s almost black.

He doesn’t know where he is or what floor he’s on, but he’s going to have to risk it, because he can scale the side of a building down, but if he opens a door into a house, he doesn’t know who’s going to meet him with a shotgun.

Cursing, Bucky tries to shuffle across the length of the cold, stone floor toward the open doors. He’s almost there when something catches his attention. Out of the corner of his eyes, something glitters, bright and blue.

Bucky freezes and the person in the other room groans and turns back over in his bed.

“I thought I could sleep more,” the person—man—finally sighs out loud. “My stomach is in knots.”

Bucky looks from the door to the couch, then back to the door again. Then he internally curses and runs back across the room, skidding in front of the pile of fur blankets he had dumped unceremoniously onto the ground. There, among the fur, he sees it—the blue stone. Glass shard. Whatever.

He grabs it and as soon as his fingers close over it, he gasps through the rattle in his teeth. The same power surges through him again, burning hot and unrelenting, causing his brain to jar in his skull. He expects it to do something—open the wormhole back up, take him somewhere else, again—but it does nothing this time. It just sits, glittering in his hand, and makes his bones ache.

“Motherfucker,” Bucky curses out between his shaking teeth and then, thinking quickly, grabs a cloth from the table and wraps the shard inside.

“What are you doing?” the man’s voice says and this time it’s right behind him.

“Fuck!” Bucky yelps. His head is still aching with the residual— _whatever_ of the stone and his heart is beating so fast his chest hurts.

“Are you ignoring me?” the man asks.

“Listen, I’m sorry, I don’t know how I got here, but I swear I’m not going to hurt you—” Bucky says, slowly turning around with both hands up, one fist closed with the wrapped shard inside.

“Hurt me?” the man says and he looks amused. “I should like to see you try.”

Bucky’s eyes widen.

The man, it turns out, is not a man at all. He’s just like him—just like Bucky—all long limbs and cool, blue skin, with long, dark hair that’s been braided and threaded through with strands of gold and rests on blue shoulders. He has hard ridges raised along his skin, three ridges curving on either side of his chest and along his ribs and down his arms. The creature has two, dark horns curving up from his forehead, a dark blue mouth, and irises that are a deep red. He has an ear shell full of small, gold hoop earrings and small, gold hoops at his nipples to match.

He gives Bucky a wry look, but his expression is soft, almost sleepy.

He’s a monster, but a beautiful one, Bucky thinks.

 _A Jotun_ , his brain supplies, although he doesn’t know from where. _A frost giant._

And as soon as he thinks it, suddenly he knows. He doesn’t know why he knows, or even how, but the knowledge slips into his head as though it has been there this entire time.

“Prince Loki,” Bucky breathes. “Your highness.”

Loki tilts his head just so, as though assessing Bucky, and then turns on his bare feet.

Bucky doesn’t know what he’s meant to do then. He doesn’t have to, it turns out. In less than a minute, Loki has reappeared with two goblets. He hands one to Bucky, who takes it, questioningly.

“If I am to lose all my freedom today, then we might as well drink,” Loki says. He raises the goblet.

Bucky smells it surreptitiously and identifies the liquid as wine. He follows Loki’s gesture. He doesn’t have much of a choice.

“To your independence,” he says.

Loki laughs, bitterly.

“To my future husband,” he says. “The great, Aesir brute. I hope he is as miserable as I am.”

Then he drinks.

  
Everyone is getting ready to take the great, rainbow bridge over to the land of their sworn enemy. For over one thousand years, the realms of Jotunheim and Asgard have been at war. Jotunheim has, for the most part, not fared particularly well from this enmity, which is why Laufey King has been left with no choice if he is to preserve what little autonomy the frost giants have left.

“Do not misunderstand,” Loki says, bitterly, wine staining his blue tongue a dark, bruised purple. “Laufey King would sooner care about a gutted calf that he was particularly fond of than his people, but you know.”

Bucky does not know.

They lean against the railing of Loki’s open balcony, furs around their blue shoulders and goblets so full, a single slosh will send wine pouring over Bucky’s long, blue fingers. It is freezing. No, Bucky is aware that that’s an understatement. It is so cold that the air is blue and the palace—walls made of ice and crystal, Bucky discovers—is blue and, in the distance, Bucky can see deep canyons and jagged, brutal mountains cresting in off-colored peaks and dark smudges of dead gorges—all blue, in varying shades, some light and some the cool tones of their skin and some so dark, it’s as close to black as blue can be.

As far as Bucky can see, it is a multifaceted, rainbow of the same color and the color is cold and so is the air that shapes it, bitterly cold, frost crawling across their skins and spikes of ice in his veins and, what’s absurd is that it feels exactly right. The cold sinks into Bucky’s hair, crystallizing in his eyelashes, a chill stirring in his blood, and it makes him feel better to be this cold, clears his head and makes it easier to breathe.

“Know what?” Bucky asks and tips his mouth forward so he can take a mouthful of wine without spilling it all over himself.

“Without his subjects, what would he be King of?” Loki asks, dryly.

“The color blue?” Bucky says, mindlessly, and that makes Loki laugh. It’s just a snicker, but it makes Bucky look over at him.

Loki rolls his shoulders and his fingers tighten on his goblet.

“He likes being King,” he says. “It is all he is suited for.”

“Is he?” Bucky asks. “Suited for it, I mean.”

That turns Loki’s expression a little bitter. There’s an edge to it when he takes a mouthful of wine.

“No,” he says. “I don’t suspect he is.”

Bucky has this knowledge in the back of his mind, like—a thousand years of Jotun history, and what Laufey King likes and dislikes, and what happened in the Jotun-Aesir war five hundred years ago, and tugging on the braid of a small, blue child who looked like he was about to cry, and shoving a dagger made of steel and pure ice into the chest of another Jotun who was three times the size of Loki and had the ugliest horns Bucky had ever seen and claws closed around Loki’s much smaller neck. How to gut a boar and where the soft flesh of a bilgesnipe is under four layers of scale and rock armor and how the most sensitive part of horns are the very, very tip.

He doesn’t know why they’re there or where they’ve come from, but he can sort through them quickly and pick what he needs, like a filing cabinet in the recesses of his frost giant brain.

Bucky licks his dark blue lips and drinks some more.

“He wouldn’t have done this to Hellbindi,” Bucky says. He has no idea why he says this or who Hellbindi is at the same time he knows exactly both of these things.

“Well luckily for him, someone took the sharp end of a dagger to my sweet, violent brother’s throat,” Loki says, cheered, and adjusts the fur along his shoulder.

“It was his chest,” Bucky says and can’t stifle his grin. He remembers how it had felt, the tip of the ice dagger against the tough resistance of Hellbindi’s flesh, firm until it gave away and his cruel, red eyes had narrowed and he had gasped a little _oh_ and stumbled back from where he was trying to murder his younger brother and Bucky’s best friend.

“Yes, yes, your finest moment,” Loki says. He sounds unimpressed, but Bucky instinctively knows better. He’s a good half a foot taller than the smaller prince, but he offers his shoulder and Loki leans back against it, comfortably. They’ve done this a thousand times, a thousand different ways, for nearly a thousand and a half years.

Bucky can feel it against his shoulder, the way Loki trembles. His mouth is resolute and his eyes are hard, determined, but his body always betrays him in the end. His prince is pulled taut, a hundred emotions balanced carefully on the head of a pin and the pin buried deep in sand, where his father and the other ruthless members of the Jotun royal court cannot find it.

“You’re nervous,” Bucky says quietly.

Loki says nothing, loudly.

In the distance, across a navy blue sky smudged with inky, almost-black clouds, far above the highest crests of mountains made of slate blue rocks and snow-capped peaks of powder blue, there is a bright bridge made of the colors of a rainbow. It’s thin and faint, but distinct, such a break from the cruel, feelingless blue monotony that it’s nearly jarring. Bucky can see it—the bridge and the scattering of stars around it—and he knows where it goes. He knows where it will take them.

“Maybe you’ll learn to love it,” Bucky says.

Still, Loki says nothing.

“Maybe you’ll learn to love him.” Bucky turns his head slightly and Loki’s mouth thins.

He drinks half of his goblet before wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. It’s a small hand, for a Jotun. He’s a small prince, for a frost giant.

“And maybe my father will learn to love me,” Loki laughs. “Maybe I am not a bargaining chip, given away because Laufey King wishes to keep Jotunheim until it becomes the wasteland he has always destined it to be.”

“Jotunheim will suffer, when you are gone,” Bucky says. “It will miss you.”

Loki’s smile is small and cruel, but sad too. His eyes are sad.

“No it won’t,” he says. “But I will miss it.”

He finishes his wine with a sigh.

“Come,” he says. “Help me ready myself. I have a husband to disappoint.”

Loki turns and strides into his chambers.

Bucky sighs and finishes the rest of his wine too. In the distance, the rainbow bridge seems to wink at him.

He wonders where Thor is and how the fuck he’s going to find him here.

  
Frost giants are generally enormous and mostly unpleasant and at turns cruel and unkind, with a sense of humor that can only be described as similar to stepping barefoot on shards of glass and sharpened pebbles, but they, like most cultures with royalty, still understand what wealth and luxury looks like.

Two servants help Loki and Bucky bathe in a slightly chilled bath of blue rose petals and oils that smell like jasmine. They undo Loki’s long braid and comb out the gold strands and press their thumbs into the back of Loki and Bucky’s necks and backs, easing the stress out of their shoulders while rubbing more oils into their skin.

The bath takes a little more than two hours and by the time they emerge, wrapped in fresh furs, Bucky feels relaxed and smells like the inside of a flower. They return to Loki’s chamber and Loki takes a seat near a large wardrobe carved of thick ice that Bucky hadn’t noticed before. One of the servants comes with a brush made of gold and begins at the crown of his head, stroking down in sections, brushing his long, dark hair until it gleams in the blue-grey gloom.

Bucky doesn’t have a servant of his own, which is just fine by him. He twists his own hair into a simple braid that he lays over his shoulder. He’s a surprisingly unfussy frost giant, but then again, he’s not the one marrying his mortal enemy. Another servant comes in with a platter of what looks like slices of cold fish and hunks of thick breads and finely cut, dark fruits that Bucky doesn’t recognize and two more goblets of wine.

Loki ignores the food and takes the drink.

“Do you know anything about him?” Bucky asks faintly, as he wanders the room. Everything, he notices, is made of either ice, crystal, iron, or dead, petrified wood that’s been carved into.

“You know I don’t,” Loki says, irritated. “He is the youngest son of Odin and expendable, I suppose, if Odin agreed to wed him to a Jotun runt.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know you’re a runt,” he says, mindlessly.

Then, Loki’s words register.

Bucky, who’s been running a finger along the blade of a brutal bowie knife made of hardened ice and steel, feels it cut into his finger as he inhales sharply.

“Fuck,” he mutters and immediately sucks on his finger before turning quickly. “The son of Odin?”

“Yes,” Loki says, bored. “Odin tried to bargain with Laufey for a lesser member of his court, some warrior something or other, but Laufey would have nothing but a prince for his prince.”

“I thought he hated you.”

“Yes, thank you for that reminder.” Loki bares his teeth humorlessly and then rolls his eyes. “I am still, nonetheless, a prince. Anyway, I’m not sure why Odin didn’t say no and simply ransack Jotunheim. Perhaps he is growing senile.”

The prince laughs then, ugly and bitter.

“What’s his name?” Bucky asks, trying to keep the urgency from his voice. “His son.”

Loki shrugs and the servant, having combed half of his hair into submission, pins it up using a comb of ivory and ice, and moves onto the rest.

“Who knows?” Loki says. “Who _cares_? Do you want to marry him in my stead?”

“I do not think that would be a good match,” Bucky says blandly and turns back to the assortment of weapons haphazardly lying across a table on the other side of Loki’s bedchamber.

This is good, he thinks, sucking in an easier breath. The anxiety that had been curled tightly in his chest lessens. If Loki’s engaged to be married to Thor, then they’ll go to Asgard and Bucky can take Thor aside and—fuck, he doesn’t know, try the blue shard thing again. Find someone who can use Norse Alien God magic on them. Wish upon a fucking star. Whatever it takes to get home. One step at a time.

“Maybe he’ll let me put a bag over his head when he fucks me,” Loki drawls and Bucky nearly chokes. “Then at least I won’t have to see him as he’s boring me.”

Bucky has less than zero desire to imagine Thor’s sex life, in any dimension.

“Maybe he’ll be a good fuck,” he offers anyway, because Bucky is nothing if not determined to ruin his own life and any measure of peace he’s known. “Doesn’t he have a reputation for being...handsome?”

Among other things. Bucky has no idea why he knows about the reputation of Thor’s sex life, of all things. Maybe he’s been cursed.

“Ha,” Loki says. It’s a dry kind of ha, but he does sound amused. Then he sounds like he’s drinking again.

Oh for fuck’s sake. Bucky sighs and turns from the knives to go back to the prince and knock his goblet to the ground when he sees a small bag made of silver thread.

“I’ll have to learn how to fake pleasure,” Loki sighs, despondently. “A lifetime of unsatisfying tumbling. Perhaps you should have let Hellbindi murder me after all.”

“You’re so fucking dramatic,” Bucky mutters, loud enough for the other Jotun to hear him. He scoops up the silver bag and dumps out the throwing knives that are nestled inside. There’s a length of thin, braided silver rope to close the top. Perfect.

“You are the least supportive friend I have ever had,” Loki says.

The servant finishes and puts the other half of Loki’s hair up into a loose bun, also secured with an ivory and ice comb. Loki waves at them, dismissing them impatiently.

“I am the only friend you’ve ever had, Loki,” Bucky says. He takes out the little cloth-wrapped blue shard that he’s stuck in his furs and dumps it into the silver bag. Then he tugs it closed and tucks the bag into a pocket in his fur.

“Yes, I’m cursed in many ways,” Loki agrees. “Now come help me.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, but does as he’s told. It’s instinctive to him—to the frost giant him—to reach for the ivory combs and take them away from Loki’s hair. It tumbles down, across his shoulders and down his back, in gleaming, loose waves.

Bucky starts at the top and begins braiding.

  
Bucky braids one layer near the top, a crown made of Loki’s hair across the back of his head, and then continues down, twisting both thick and small braids, layered together, all the way down the length of his hair, until it’s one long braid, interlaced with other, smaller braids. At the bottom, he ties it off with a gold band and then reaches for a crystal box that Loki’s opened for him. From there, he takes little crystals, pieces of gold, diamonds, and gems of amber and light blue and the deep green of emeralds—Loki’s favorite stone—and intersperses them throughout his braids.

It takes over an hour, but it’s a quiet one, soothing and almost peaceful, just Bucky’s movements and Loki’s breathing, and a comfortable silence between them.

When Bucky finally steps back, Loki’s hair is glittering and when Loki turns to look at him, even the dim Jotunheim light seems to glow, like the air is filled with fireflies, or small pricks of light.

“Oh,” Bucky breathes and, for once, Loki looks as nervous as he must feel.

“It’s all right?” he asks.

Bucky smiles.

“Yeah,” he says. “Come on, the rest now.”

  
**art:** Jotun Bucky braiding Jotun Prince Loki's hair; **art by:** nalonzooo

Loki stands and they switch his regular shoulder furs for a nicer set, fur dark enough to match his hair, with two small, circular plates of gold to hold the fur just below his shoulders and a woven gold chain linking them. He pulls on his leather skirt and Bucky helps him secure it in place with a belt of gold that sits on his hips and dips down to a point just below his groin.

Then there’s the leather and gold vambraces for his arms and the same for his legs, just above practical boots of black leather. When everything is secure, Bucky reaches for the crystal box again and pulls out earrings of small gold hoops and little green gems, which he helps loops through the holes on Loki’s ears while Loki pulls ring after ring onto his long fingers.

“Better hope he isn’t allergic to gold,” Bucky says and Loki lets out a low, nervous laugh. “Last chain.”

Loki hands Bucky a long, thin chain and Bucky, holding his breath—as carefully as possible—begins looping it around his prince’s horns. Loki closes his eyes and tries to swallow his sounds, but Bucky can still hear his breath hitch as the chain rubs lightly against the sensitive shell of his horns. Bucky strings it across in lazy loops and then secures the ends back into Loki’s dark hair.

When he’s done, Loki lets out a low breath and Bucky steps back.

He grins.

Loki opens his eyes.

There’s nothing between them except for quiet breathing and the soft silence born of two companions who have spent centuries, simply surviving together.

The air around Loki shimmers—he glows like starlight.

“You look beautiful, your highness,” Bucky says, quietly.

And Loki—who has been neglected and abused and treated cruelly his entire life—smiles.

  
The Jotun delegation leaves just as the muted, blue-grey gloom of twilight is deepening into a darker, blue-grey gloom of night. The retinue is the betrothed prince, his four bodyguards, his father the King, _his_ six bodyguards, two dozen courtiers simply to show the Aesir what Jotun numbers can look like, and a former supersoldier in the body of a frost giant.

They travel on enormous steeds of pure white, with blue veins bright against their snowy hair and eyes of deep, blood red, just like their masters. The horses are no normal creatures, with six legs apiece, and when they take one step, the icy ground eats away not in inches, but in whole feet. One moment, Bucky and Loki are on the grounds in front of the palace and then they are yards away and then farther and farther, until they are eating across frosted grounds and up sharp, rock inclines and through a portal that leads them into the stars and onto a bridge made of a rainbow.

  
There is a man with dark skin and dark braids and glowing, golden eyes who greets them in a golden cavern with a sword drawing lightning from the middle. The man with the golden eyes pulls the sword from the middle of the dais and the portal behind them closes with a sound like crashing thunder.

“I am Heimdall, the Gatekeeper,” he says in a voice so deep it curls into Bucky’s bones. “The All-Father and the crown prince are awaiting you. Cross the bridge and approach the palace. They will greet you there.”

Their steeds snicker and the Jotun give one another derisive looks. The Gatekeeper does not seem to care.

“Thank you,” Loki says, finally. “Heimdall.”

Heimdall turns his beautiful, unnerving, all-seeing eyes on him. He watches him for a moment, suspicious and cold. Then his expression lightens, imperceptibly.

“Your highness,” Heimdall says and inclines his head.

Loki nods and leads the delegation out of the Gatekeeper’s cavern and onto the bridge. Bucky holds his breath as he passes Heimdall and Heimdall, for his part, frowns slightly.

He turns his head as Bucky passes him and although he says nothing, there’s a twitch in his expression, as though he can tell that Bucky does not belong, although he couldn’t say why.

  
“Holy fuck,” Bucky breathes out.

They stop at the end of the bifrost and Asgard spreads out in front of them, sprawling and golden and beautiful. The city of Odin, the home and throne of the Aesir, is tall, golden spires sitting against a backdrop of silver-colored mountains that stretch so high, they seem to pierce the sky with snow-capped peaks of pure white. The evening sky is a darkening blue streaked with lavender and soft pinks and a spread of stars scattered so clearly across the stretch of it, that when Bucky tilts his head back, he feels as though he can see to the four corners of the universe. There are two enormous moons to the East and the outline of a smaller planet, from farther away.

Against this magnificent, breathtaking backdrop, the palace stands, gleaming against the soft twilight colors, the stacked spires like a dinosaur’s spine coated in melted gold or golden windchimes set side-by-side from smallest to tallest, creating a mountain peak of its own in the middle. It is unlike anything Bucky has seen or ever will see again. He swallows heavily, shivering.

“This is all yours now,” he mutters to Loki, whose eyes—like Bucky’s—are wide, his mouth slack with awe.

“It is too hot,” an ugly, rude voice grunts behind them and Laufey King shifts on his snarling steed.

“Ignore him,” Bucky says quietly, but it doesn’t sound like Loki’s heard his father anyway. It doesn’t look like Loki’s heard anything at all.

His eyes glimmer in the colors of Asgard. Already, they seem to seep into him.

  
Eventually, the Jotun prince closes his mouth and he leads the delegation forward again.

It takes another five minutes to cross the wide, stone pathway that winds from the edge of the bifrost toward the palace of the Aesir.

By the time they reach the ornate golden gates, Bucky is loath to admit that Laufey isn’t completely wrong. He’s sweating under his thick furs and the heat dampens his skin. He is as uncomfortable in the simmering heat as he had been comfortable in the bone deep cold of Jotunheim.

“Your highness,” a familiar voice says and Bucky and Loki’s attention is drawn from the sparkling city around them to two figures coming forward from the gate.

The first—to Bucky’s immense relief—is Thor. The Norse God has on a gleaming breastplate that catches the setting sun and a long, bright red cape that’s attached to his shoulders with small, circular metal plates. His vambraces glint in the twilight colors and there’s a familiar hammer attached to his hip. He stands taller than Bucky has seen him yet, regal and confident and handsome.

This is Thor as Bucky hasn’t known him; his home beneath his feet, the golden, renowned prince of the Aesir.

He tries to catch Thor’s eyes, but Thor doesn’t seem to recognize him. Or maybe, he’s just not paying attention.

“Welcome to Asgard,” Thor says and although it’s to his enemies, although they are seated, strapped with weapons, and he isn’t, the prince of Asgard bows.

Next to him, there’s another man in armor and a deep blue cape. He has a shield cradled against his back, gleaming, blond hair, and blue eyes Bucky has memorized two worlds over.

“Steve,” Bucky says with a sharp, woozy inhale.

His heart clatters in surprise around his chest as Steve Rogers, warrior of the Aesir, dips at his hips, and bows to them as well.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At risk of becoming repetitive: NIKKI'S ART OF JOTUN BUCKY AND JOTUN LOKI IS SO BEAUTIFUL? Look at our gorgeous blue frost giant best friends!!!


	7. Chapter Seven. [ second oddity: jotunheim ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And what are you expecting, Loki?” Thor asks.
> 
> “A loveless marriage,” Loki says. “My freedom sold to a barbarian kingdom, my independence given to an Aesir brute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow is going to SUCK for all Americans, so have a longer-than-usual, soft, romantic chapter. Keep safe and keep well, friends. We'll get through this together. ♥

The Jotun delegation is larger and ruder and uglier than Thor could have imagined. They come on massive, white horses with six legs each and blood red eyes that give them a mean sort of look. Thor can identify Laufey immediately, not because he is the biggest and the ugliest of them—although he is that too—but because Thor’s seen him once before, close up, on a barren, icy realm that he had almost brought war to.

“How can you tell which one is yours?” Steve mutters close to his ear and Thor shoves his friend in the side.

It’s a good question, actually, or it would be if Thor didn’t know what to expect, if he hadn’t shoved past Steve in the library and marched into his mother’s chambers, up to Odin—still alive, still with one eye and his closely held secrets—and demanded it of him, the name of the frostling he was binding his only son to, without his consent.

“His name is Loki, son of Laufey,” his father had said and it had made Thor reel, stumble backwards until his mother’s hand on his shoulder had been the only anchor keeping him grounded.

“Loki?” Thor had asked. “I am to be married to Loki? Why?”

“He is Laufey’s only remaining son,” Odin had said, unhappy to be questioned. “For too long have we warred. Your marriage is what will bring peace between our two realms.”

“But,” Thor had said, nearly desperately, but he had no follow up—not, _but he was my brother in another world_ ; not, _but he has not learned how to not hate me_ ; and certainly not, _but he has died three times over and each time has broken my heart with him_.

So maybe if he hadn’t asked—maybe, if he hadn’t spent almost two thousand years growing next to him, side-by-side, both brothers and enemies and, on occasion, when the moons aligned and neither of them had anything to prove, friends—maybe then Thor would not know what or who to look for. But he has spent his entire life with his brother next to him and so Loki’s eyes, which are not green here, are familiar to him, and his skin, which is blue, is familiar to him, and his dark hair, which glitters as though strewn with stars, is familiar to him as well.

“He is the one in the middle,” Thor says to Steve. “The one who leads them.”

Thor straightens and Loki, one hand on his beast’s reigns, swings himself down gracefully. It is immediate to Thor he is much smaller than the rest of his companions. It is also clear to him that he is less mean, somehow, if not less cold. He is cautious and he is intelligent and he is, strangely, beautiful.

Thor’s chest constricts as he meets his betrothed in the middle.

“Your highness,” Thor says and holds out a hand. “Welcome to Asgard.”

Loki says nothing for a moment. His gaze—always assessing, always reserved and sharp and curious—scrapes over Thor and Thor thinks: nothing feels more familiar than this.

Loki allows Thor to take his hand and Thor presses his mouth against the back of cool, blue skin.

“Thank you,” he says, finally. Loki’s voice, although soft and cold, is familiar too. “It is...large.”

Thor straightens and smiles, which makes Loki’s expression cool further.

“Your party will be shown to their chambers and provided food and drink. And then there will be some time to rest and gather yourselves,” Thor says.

“Before?” Loki asks. His gaze, which had been tilted up, tracing the spires of the palace all the way up, returns back to Thor.

Thor doesn’t know why that makes him feel nervous and wrong-footed. He is a prince of Asgard— _the_ prince of the Aesir. This is his home, even if it isn’t exactly _his_ home.

He draws his shoulders up and realizes, once he does so, that he is at least a handful of inches taller than this Loki. He is very small, for a giant.

“Our wedding, your highness,” Thor says.

Loki’s mouth thins with displeasure. His eyes flash and then, just as quickly, his expression withdraws. He shutters and when Loki is like this—when he retreats—he is impossible to reach.

“I see,” he says and steps back. “Then take us to our chambers and let us be done with this as quickly as possible.”

He turns and returns to his beast. Just as smoothly as he had dismounted, Loki lifts himself onto the great steed’s back.

Steve, next to Thor, braces a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Please,” Thor says to the Jotun delegation. “Follow me.”

  
They lead the delegation to the palace gates, where they are asked to dismount and Aesir servants lead the great Jotun beasts to the stables. From there, the Jotuns follow Thor and Steve and a few servants on foot, across the threshold and into the palace.

“Laufey King,” Thor says, turning and addressing the brute King of the Frost Giants. “Once you are settled in your suite, my father will see you in the throne room. One of the Warriors Three, Fandral, will come to retrieve you.”

Laufey gives some sort of an answer that might be words and might be a derisive snort. Thor hopes he will not have to deal with his future father-in-law too extensively.

To the rest he says, “Please follow Var and Mani. They will settle you.”

The Jotuns are restless and tired and also seem to take after their king in that they respond by either snorting or grunting or, in some cases, doing both at the same time.

Still, they are as motivated by food and drink as any Aesir or Vanir and so they begin to shuffle after the two Aesir servants.

Before Loki can move past him, Thor presses a hand to his wrist.

Immediately, Loki’s eyes flash and he bears his teeth.

“How dare y—”

“Please,” Thor says quietly, leaning toward his betrothed. “Frigga’s rose garden. If you ask Var, she will show you the way.”

Loki’s mouth is a sharp, unhappy slash, but he assesses Thor’s face again before answering.

“Why?”

“We are to marry,” Thor says. “I’d like to know you before then.”

“We are to marry,” Loki says, coldly. “It does not matter whether you begin to know me or not.”

Thor doesn’t let him go and Loki’s eyes flicker to his wrist, where Thor’s fingers are now curling around the delicate bone.

“Please,” Thor says. “In an hour.”

“Let go of me,” the Prince of Jotunheim says.

Thor does as he’s told this time.

“Frigga’s rose garden,” he says to him again and steps back. “An hour.”

Loki takes his wrist back and wraps his other hand around it, as though he can rub the feeling of Thor’s fingers away. He glares at Thor, but Thor, used to a lifetime of Loki’s venom, is unaffected. Loki turns and follows his retinue.

Thor watches him go, both hopeful and hopeless. With Loki, the two have always been twin feelings.

The party turns the corner from the Great Hall toward the long wing with the royal guest and courtier chambers. Only one Jotun turns back to look, but he doesn’t look at Thor. Instead, Thor thinks, peculiarly, he seems to be watching Steve instead.

  
“So that’s your in-laws,” Steve says, as they watch them go.

“Only one of them,” Thor says, with a frown, and pauses. “I think.”

There’s a silence between them and then Steve turns back toward him. It’s strange to see his friend in Asgardian clothing, but Thor can’t help but think it suits him—the silver-and-blue metal breastplate and the leather trousers and the blue, velvet cape secured to his shoulder. Steve’s hair is longer than Thor has ever seen it be, pulled back at the nape of his neck, with viking braids worked along the sides. He has a shield, even here, but everything else about him is tall and strong and golden. He could always have been an Aesir warrior, Thor thinks.

Thor has a suspicion about the Jotun who could not take his eyes off of him.

“Are you going to be all right?” Steve asks. “We can still get you out of this. We’ll find a way.”

Thor’s mouth twists into a half-smile.

“And what do you propose we do?” he says. “Where would we run to hide from the All Father?”

“It just doesn’t seem right,” Steve says, with frustration. “This is an old custom. You’re his only son. Why should you marry someone you don’t love, someone you haven’t even _met_ yet, just because your father decided you should? And a _frost giant_ —”

“It’s not his fault,” Thor says and Steve looks taken aback.

“What?”

“Loki,” Thor says. He stares down the hallway, as though by watching, he can will Loki to appear again. “It’s no more his choice than it is mine.”

“Well, sure, but—”

“I think...it will be okay,” Thor says.

Steve’s brows furrow.

“It will not be the end of me, to marry a frost giant,” Thor says and he even manages a smile. “I think it’s long past time we begin to mend our misconceptions of them. Too long have we used them as our villains, to scare children in the middle of the night.”

“They’re our enemies,” Steve says, sounding lost.

“And we are theirs,” Thor says.

“Are you all right?” Steve asks, lowering his voice. He looks so concerned it’s almost funny. “Are you having a breakdown? Shall I call for Eir—”

“Oh stop,” Thor says and swats at his friend’s shoulder. That seems to ease Steve’s disproportionate anxiety, although not by much. Thor just shakes his head. “If I’m to one day be king, I want to be a better king than my father. I don’t want to be ruled by his animosities, his prejudices.”

“And you think absolving the frost giants will allow you to do this?” Steve asks.

“Not...absolving,” Thor says. He thinks of a past life, of his brother staring at his hands as they turned blue, of the hatred in his eyes, the betrayal as he tried to kill his own people—and why wouldn’t he have, when he had been taught his entire life to hate them? Maybe here, Thor can make up for past sins. Maybe here, Thor can give Loki the acceptance he deserves.

“Then?”

“Giving them a chance,” he says.

It’s clear that this Steve doesn’t understand, but then this Steve was taught what they were all taught—that the Jotun are monsters; that they are evil and cowardly; that they are the creatures that eat children and go bump in the night. It isn’t his fault, it is Odin’s fault. It is always Odin’s fault.

“Trust me,” Thor says, finally.

Steve looks at Thor for a moment and then nods. “This is what you want?”

“This is what I want,” Thor says.

Steve looks unconvinced, but at the end of the day, he is—no matter his background—still Steve Rogers. He knows what it means to be unrelenting in what you believe to be right and he won’t begrudge anyone else the same choice.

His friend smiles and claps Thor on his shoulder.

“Then you should not be late for the rose garden,” he says. “Send for me when you’re done and I’ll come help you prepare yourself for later.”

Thor breathes out nervously and nods.

“Thank you,” he says. “Really.”

Then he takes Steve’s advice and crosses the palace grounds to his mother’s garden.

  
Frigga’s rose garden is renowned across most of the Nine Realms not only for its sheer magnitude, but also because its flowers never die. There are, of course, roses of every color and shade and size, but there are other flowers too—blooms of jasmine and gardenia and purple-stained orchids and chrysanthemums the size of Thor’s head. There are bushes of hydrangeas and sweet tulips and enormous blossoms of peonies that smell so fragrant that no one who walks the garden can ignore it. There are alien flowers too, Asgardian natives, and species that have been gifted to Frigga from all corners of the realms and which should not take to Asgardian soil and which for anyone else wouldn’t, but no flower can deny his mother.

Some flowers open only in the morning and others open only at night and then there are the flowers that remain open at all times, with bright, vibrant colors that run the entire known spectrum and fill in where known colors fail. Frigga’s rose garden blooms all year long, no matter the weather or the season, and a frost only falls when she wants it to, or when, through her seidr, she clears stretches of her garden to allow for different flowers to grow.

Thor doesn’t remember spending too much time in his mother’s garden while growing up, but the same could not be said of his brother. If Thor could not find Loki in his room or along the water, he could find him stretched out against a tree or hidden by a bush of peonies in the garden, book in hand.

His chest warms when he realizes it’s not so different here, in this foreign world he only partially knows, with a man who is no longer his brother.

Loki, blue and glittering and beautiful, stands by a bloom of pink camellias, touching the velvet soft petals.

“You came,” Thor says, softly.

Loki freezes, as though caught doing something inappropriate, and visibly forces himself to relax as he looks up at Thor.

“I was curious,” he says. And, after a moment, “We don’t have blooms on Jotunheim.”

“None?” Thor asks.

“No,” Loki says. “It’s too cold. Everything dies there.”

That seems more on the nose than Thor cares to comment on. Instead, he reaches out and touches the petals of a yellow flower he can’t name.

“A primrose,” Loki says, as though reading his mind. Thor must look surprised, because he gives him a tight smile. “Just because we do not have them, does not mean I cannot read about them.”

It’s such a prickly answer, it almost makes Thor smile.

“What else do you read about?” he asks, carefully.

“All sorts of things,” Loki says. He moves on from the camellias, walking slowly down the line of flowering hedges they’re standing in the middle of. “Flowers. Planets. Weapons.”

“No stories?” Thor asks. He follows Loki, but maintains his distance, always half a dozen paces behind him.

“Sometimes,” Loki admits. “They’re more interesting, but less practical.”

“You like knowing things,” Thor says.

Loki stops by a cluster of orange-and-white lilies.

“I like knowing what to expect,” he says.

Thor watches him, the way the tension is held in the lines of his narrow shoulders, the way his mouth is pulled just taut. The way the fading sunset seems to catch in his hair, making the gems glitter among the dark.

“And what are you expecting, Loki?” Thor asks.

“You are too familiar,” Loki murmurs.

“Sorry,” Thor says, immediately. “Your highness.”

Loki touches the tip of a lily and then, resigned, turns toward Thor.

“I am expecting what I have read. What I have been taught to expect,” Loki says.

Thor raises an eyebrow and Loki crosses his arm at his bare chest. There is a gold hoop on each of his nipples and a thin, gold chain that connects them. Thor does his best not to stare.

“A loveless marriage,” Loki says. “My freedom sold to a barbarian kingdom, my independence given to an Aesir brute.”

“Is that what you think of us?” Thor says and he can’t help the laugh that escapes.

It’s the wrong move. Loki’s eyes flash angrily.

“Is this funny to you?” he says through grit teeth. “Is my unhappiness _funny_ to you?”

“Loki, no—” Thor says immediately, the smile disappearing from his face. Loki glares at him and he hastily corrects himself. “Your highness—I’m sorry, I wasn’t making fun. I can only imagine what that’s like...to have to leave everything behind, to marry someone you don’t know, much less love.” He pauses. “Well, all right, that last part I actually can imagine.”

Loki doesn’t look impressed. But then, Loki has never, in two thousand years, looked impressed with Thor.

“I am sorry,” Thor says. “That was unthinking and unkind on my part. Please, forgive me.”

Loki doesn’t look as though he’s particularly fond of the idea, but Thor must look exceptionally pathetic, because he finally sighs and lets his shoulders slump back down.

“Whatever,” Loki says. “I suppose it doesn’t matter one way or another.”

“What doesn’t?”

Loki shifts his gaze again, no longer on Thor, but on the flowers in front of him.

“Whether you’re a brute,” he says. “We are to be married, so it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, does it?”

“It matters to me,” Thor says and Loki lets out a disbelieving snort. “I can’t say that I was never a brute. I was...unkind and arrogant and unsympathetic, in my youth. I didn’t take seriously the things I should have taken seriously. I didn’t pay attention to the people who meant the most to me.”

Loki stares at him and Thor looks back.

“But that was a mistake,” Thor says, softly. “And I changed. I have tried to change.”

There’s no reason for Loki to believe him and, indeed, he doesn’t look as though he does. But he does look curious and sometimes, for Loki, they serve the same purpose.

“What made you change?” Loki asks.

It’s Thor’s turn to look away. He thinks about a different life; a life where his father is dead and his mother gone along with Heimdall and the Warriors Three and Asgard is destroyed and Loki—

His chest aches, dully.

“I lost everything,” Thor says, with a sad smile. “That makes you change.”

There’s nothing Loki can say to that, so he doesn’t. That suits Thor just fine. There’s a hurt in his chest he can’t think past. He doesn’t know what he would say, even if he had the words.

Around them, the sky darkens and slowly, one by one, the lights turn on in Frigga’s rose garden.

“Oh,” Loki breathes.

Thor had forgotten. There are fairy lights strung above the flower garden, soft, twinkling lights among the bushes, in the trees, lights hovering in the air above it all, like little fireflies of seidr. It is his mother’s love, glowing around them. It is her magic.

“Loki,” Thor says and this time Loki doesn’t snap at him for it.

“I will lose everything too,” Loki says. “Even if it was never meant for me, it was mine. And to come here—to be wed to you, I will lose it all. It will make me hate you, even if it isn’t your fault. Do you understand that?”

Loki has always been a deeply emotional, complicated, hurt creature. That was true of him when he was his brother, the little Jotun, stolen and raised as an Aesir. It was true of him when he was a son trying to capture his father’s attention, trying to prove to his father he was worth his love. It was also true of him when he was clawing against his older brother, trying to thwart him, loving him and hating him in the same breath. And, without really knowing him in any real way, Thor knows it is true also of this Loki, now.

The truth is that Loki—his Loki and this Loki and, Thor suspects, all Lokis—are difficult. They are prickly and they are brilliant and they are exceedingly impossible. The truth is, it is easy to vilify him, to reject him when all he wants is to be understood.

It has taken Thor too long to understand this.

He looks at the red of his eyes and the curve of his horns. His brother’s skin is a cool, sky blue and his nails are more like claws and he’s wearing fur and gold and he looks nothing like any Loki he has ever known. This Loki is a Loki that Thor should fear, a Loki that Thor was raised to feell repulsed by. He is a vicious, terrifying, beautiful Loki, but all Thor really feels is sad, sad that he hadn’t gotten to know his brother’s Jotun side when he was still alive.

“I understand,” Thor finally says, two lifetimes too late. “I do not wish to be your captor, Loki. If we are to marry, then let us be partners instead.”

Loki’s brows knit together, as though this, of all things, is not something he expected.

A light lands on Loki’s shoulder and this time it is a firefly, glowing softly in the dark.

Thor reaches over and plucks an Asgardian flower with large, purple-blue petals that seem to glitter under the garden’s lights. He steps toward Loki and this time, Loki does not move away.

“Trust me,” Thor says softly and, carefully, tucks the flower behind Loki’s ear.

Loki’s breathing is soft and quick as he tilts his head up, looks up the few inches difference between him and Thor. Thor doesn’t move.

The lights make Loki glitter.

Their breathing mixes together, quiet and in tandem, Thor’s heart beating rapidly, loud in his ears.

There’s a glazed look to both of them and Thor, he glances down to Loki’s mouth.

They stay there like that for a minute, maybe two, maybe a month, or a year, or, perhaps, a small eternity.

“Partners?” Loki says, voice soft as a whisper.

“Equals,” Thor says. “In every way.”

It is what he should have told him a long time ago, ages and lifetimes and worlds ago. Thor had been too stupid then, too arrogant and young and blind. He won’t make that same mistake again.

Finally, Loki’s mouth curves up, just a little, at the corners. It’s not a smile—not really—but it is a softening. A give, just a little.

“All right,” he says. “I will try.”

A soft pause and then, “Thor.”

Thor can’t think about how that makes him feel; a fizziness at the back of his mind, an effervescence sparking on his skin. A little, unfamiliar knot in the pit of his stomach.

“I’ll go and get ready then,” Thor says finally, nearly fumbling with the words in his mouth. He can’t help the slow, bright grin creeping over his face. “For tonight.”

The corner of Loki’s mouth quirks up more confidently this time. It’s almost a look of amusement.

“Make sure to look handsome,” Loki says. “It is our wedding after all.”

Loki takes a step back and it takes all of Thor’s willpower not to follow after him.

“I am always handsome,” Thor manages to say.

That makes Loki tilt his head back and laugh. It is the best sound Thor has heard in many, many years.

*

Asgardians really fucking love to drink. This is something Bucky could have deduced just from having known Thor for longer than ten minutes, but it does put everything into a better sort of perspective. They have a few hours before the wedding and Bucky has enough intuition and deductive reasoning skill to understand that frost giants and Asgardians do not really seem to get along, and that a great way of having his head separated from his new blue body would be to sneak around the palace looking for the crowned prince of the Aesir.

The joke is on him though, because he can’t seem to find Loki _either_ , since the palace is fucking huge and Loki seems to have disappeared anyway, with no regard for his best friend’s predicament, so eventually he just says fuck it and follows a couple of his blue companions out of the palace and to the nearest tavern.

The tavern is a stone’s throw away and seems to be filled with members of the royal court anyway, so maybe there’s some kind of unofficial affiliation between the Asgardian palace and the establishment, kind of like a _you supply all of us liquor and we give you gold so you can keep supplying all of us liquor_ symbiotic relationship. Bucky assumes businesses on Asgard work the same as they do on Earth.

Anyway, the tavern is enormous and bustling with villagers and members of the royal court and now, conspicuously, frost giants. There’s a tense, horrible hush that falls over the entire place when the Jotun enter. For a few moments, the frost giants stand at the door uneasily, staring back with hostility as almost every head in the establishment turns toward them. Bucky’s nerves ratchet up, but ultimately there is nothing to worry about. The tension lasts just as long as the time it takes the frost giants to pile a small mountain of gold on the bar counter and demand ale.

Alcohol, in the end, is the great equalizer.

The barkeep tries to bite one of the pieces of gold, presumably to make sure it isn’t made of chocolate, and once he almost breaks a tooth on it, he starts filling massive tankards full of ale and then the whole place is roaring with sound and laughter again.

Bucky takes a tankard that’s handed to him without discretion and he settles down in a corner of the room where he can keep his back to the wall and a clear view of all of the Jotuns and Aesir in front. The Asgardians and frost giants are wary of one another at first, but then some drunk spills ale on themselves and the whole room laughs at them and making fun of someone turns out to be a great equalizer too. Whatever tension had been frizzling in the air dissipates and the noise that follows can be described as nothing short of raucous.

Bucky takes a deep drink of his Asgardian ale and is surprised to find how strong it is. Admittedly, he has an altered, increased tolerance as a frost giant alien god, but if he had to guess, he’d say that it would take three times the amount of beer from back home to equal the Asgardian stuff. Maybe Thor wasn’t an alcoholic after all.

He grins a little to himself and watches as one of his frost giant compatriots leans down over an Asgardian to show him his razor-sharp teeth, each the length of a small dagger. The Asgardian is clearly horrified, but not to be outdone. In return, he shows the frost giant something on his arm that has the blue giant first twist his face and then throw his head back and laugh. Then they both grin and clink their ales together. It’s the most surreal sight Bucky has ever seen.

“What the fuck goes on?” Bucky mutters to himself.

If you had told him a month ago that he would be on an alien planet, in a bar crowded with different kinds of aliens, while looking like an alien himself, he would have first laughed and then given you the number for his SHIELD-appointed therapist and then, casually, offered his high tech, Wakandan prosthetic arm in exchange to make it happen. He’s loved science fiction his entire life and he can’t imagine something his past self would have been psyched for more than this—him, a literal fucking alien, with curved horns and claws and long teeth that can probably crunch through bones, on a different planet in the middle of space—maybe in a different reality altogether. He clicks his long, sharp nails against the wooden bar top and grins, making a mental note to tell Steve that being a literal monster is pretty fucking cool—

Only to realize he can’t.

Bucky is here on Asgard and his Steve is somewhere else—some _time_ else—and Bucky doesn’t know where to begin looking for him. The pouch with the blue shard is nestled into his furs, kept close on his body, but that brings more questions than it helps answer. What is it? What does it do, exactly? How does it work? And how can Bucky and Thor use it to find them—their missing Steve and Loki?

 _Can_ they even find them? Bucky’s no fucking time traveling, world-hopping genius and Thor is too fucking depressed to be of much help. Together, the two of them are about as useful as one of Stark’s bright ideas.

He gloomily looks at his drink, as though he might find the answer at the bottom of the glass.

“If it begins talking back to you, I think you can ask the barkeep for a refund,” a familiar voice says next to him.

Bucky looks up in surprise, his stomach jerking, and his head goes a little fuzzy.

“It’s not supposed to do that,” Steve explains, with a small smile.

Bucky has seen Steve Rogers in many different iterations. He’s seen him as a child, sickly and thin, with busted knuckles and an energy that can only be referred to as _scrappy_. He’s seen him older, 105 pounds soaking wet, with a broken nose and blond hair that flops into his eyes. He’s seen him pumped full of serum, muscles spread across a solid frame that’s shot up half a foot in a span of two minutes. He’s seen him large and he’s seen him rough and he’s seen him sad and tired and worn, but he has been, for all of his iterations, quintessentially Steve. And although this is Steve too—although he has Steve’s blue eyes and wry, half-smile and fine, gold-spun hair—everything else about him is so distinctly _alien_ that it punches Bucky sideways.

This Steve is Aesir in a way that is both physical and thoroughly intangible. He’s tall and large— _big_ —with muscles that seem to fit him and an ease to his lines that he’s never had before, not even after he’d lived with the serum long enough to grow used to its changes. This Steve is confident—of himself, of his body—as though he’s never had a reason not to be. He’s almost languid, an easy expression on his face, as though Steve Rogers _could_ be this—relentless and pig-headed and noble, sure, but easy too, as though if you stripped away all of the hardships and loss he’s ever faced, he too could simply _be_. He’s beautiful, in all that he is and all that he has no reason to be.

His hair is long, nearly down to the middle of his back, and he has it pulled back, with viking braids twisting up the side of his head. He has gauges in his ears and a small, silver septum piercing. There’s black ink crawling up the back of his neck and where the neckline of his jerkin dips, Bucky sees more ink, just peeking through at his clavicle.

Bucky’s brain makes the kind of sound that computer motherboards make when the electricity fries them.

This Steve isn’t just beautiful—he is fucking _hot_.

  
**art:** Asgardian warrior Steve Rogers, leaning against the bar; **art by:** nalonzooo

Bucky is so busy trying to generate saliva to deal with how dry his mouth has gotten, that he almost misses the way Steve’s eyebrow quirks. Holy shit, is that pierced too? Bucky is going to fucking die.

“Uh,” Bucky’s lone firing synapse allows him to say.

“You...do speak the common tongue?” Steve asks, suddenly concerned.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Yeah, I speak the common tongue,” Bucky says. Grunts, really. “We’re frost giants, not aliens.”

“You can’t be both?” Steve says and, without asking, takes a seat on the stool next to him.

Bucky’s eyes narrow.

“That’s presumptive of you,” he says.

“Were you saving this seat for someone?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I have a lot of friends, as you can see.”

“I’ve always wanted invisible friends,” Steve grins and Bucky nearly groans. A whole Asgardian God and the punk is _still_ a shit-stirring asshole.

“The thing about invisible friends,” Bucky says and taps the mouth of his glass.

“Yeah?” Steve sounds interested now and he turns on his stool toward Bucky, giving him his full attention.

“Is that even they have better manners than the Aesir,” Bucky says, deadpan.

Steve leans closer and his grin widens. “Because they don’t exist?”

“Because everyone has better manners than the Aesir, you ass. Your kind are unspeakably intolerable,” Bucky says and Steve laughs. It’s too loud for the rib it is, but Bucky still has to hide his smile inside his glass as he takes another mouthful of ale.

“Maybe I haven’t made the best first impression,” Steve admits.

“You haven’t even given me your name,” Bucky points out.

“So you can insult me personally?” Steve asks, pressing a hand to his chest.

“Yes,” Bucky says. “No fun if it’s impersonal.”

That makes Steve grin again and then he holds out a hand.

“Steve Rogers,” he says. “Of the Warriors Three. Four on a good day.”

Bucky frowns and takes it to shake.

“But on a bad day…?”

“Either Volstagg is too hungry or Fandral is too loud or Hogun is too sleepy,” Steve explains. “And then we have to adjust our numbers.”

“And you?” Bucky asks.

“Too stubborn,” Steve says, wisely. He signals to the barkeep, who has a tankard to him within seconds. “Sometimes his highness will tell me to do something and I just won’t do it, because I don’t want to.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky says and Steve’s expression flickers in confusion.

“Excuse me?”

“Nevermind,” Bucky says. There aren’t enough words in multiple worlds to explain. He takes another drink.

“And what about you? The Jotun do have names, don’t they?” Steve asks.

“No, we’re all named rock and grunt and ice chip,” Bucky says, dryly. He rolls his eyes. “Bucky.”

“How is that better than ice chip?” Steve asks.

Bucky glowers at him, with all of the venom he can muster, which, admittedly, isn’t a terrible lot.

“I can’t _stand_ you.”

Steve’s grin widens in amusement and he takes a long drink of his own before turning his attention back to Bucky. His eyes keep washing over him, as though he’s taking in every blue inch of him, while attempting to be surreptitious. He isn’t doing a particularly good job, but then Steve Rogers has never once known the act of subtlety.

“So your prince,” Steve says. “Loki. What’s he like?”

“Prickly,” Bucky says. “What’s your prince like? Thor.”

“Impulsive,” Steve says. “Strong-willed. Stupid, sometimes. Good to his core.”

No wonder Steve likes him.

“If he hurts Loki, I’ll gouge his eyes out,” Bucky says. He taps his long nails against his glass again. “That _is_ a threat.”

Instead of looking affronted, Steve just smiles instead.

“What if Loki hurts him?”

Bucky shrugs.

“He probably deserved it,” he says.

Steve snorts.

“What if we let them handle their problems and we handle our own?” he offers as an alternative.

Bucky frowns, but he meets Steve’s eyes anyway. They’re bright, lively and mischievous in a way that Bucky is unfamiliar with. Steve leans toward him and it’s only then that Bucky realizes, belatedly—he’s flirting.

Steve Rogers is _flirting_ with him.

“And what problems are those?” Bucky asks, swallowing.

If Steve is unable to look away from him, Bucky’s also unable to look away from Steve. Without his consent, something twists in his chest.

“Well, we’re out of drink, for starters,” Steve grins.

Bucky’s eyes flicker to his half-full glass and back up to Steve.

“No we’re not,” he says, with another frown.

Steve raises his glass and gives Bucky’s a pointed look. After a moment, Bucky follows suit. They clink them together and then Steve tips his back and drinks the rest of his, just chugs it all down at once. Not willing to be defeated, Bucky does the same.

When they put their glasses back down, Bucky has to admit his head is spinning, just a little, and, for some reason, he can’t seem to stop grinning.

Steve presses close to him, his warmth thick and nearly overwhelming against Bucky’s cold, frost giant skin, and Bucky’s head spins some more.

“Look at that,” Steve says, pleased. “Now we are.”

Bucky watches, his throat quickly drying, his heart picking up an unsteady beat, as Steve waves at the barkeep for two more ales.

“Tell me about frost giants, Bucky,” Steve says. His eyes flicker up to Bucky’s horns and Bucky, despite himself, wonders what it would be like if Steve touched him there, in the place this body is most sensitive. The thought sends shivers down his spine, his skin suddenly heating in all of the places it’s usually cool.

Jesus fucking Christ, Bucky thinks, and then Steve’s fingers are pressed to his wrist—hot, pale fingertips against chilled, blue skin.

His pulse races.

He stares stupidly at Steve’s mouth.

“Well?”

“They’re right, what they say,” Bucky says after a moment, his voice pitched low. “We’re monsters.”

Steve’s eyes never leave his. He doesn’t let Bucky’s wrist go.

“I’m not afraid of monsters,” he says, and tilts his head just so.

Bucky’s gut twists. This is insane, he thinks. This is stupid. He doesn’t know Steve in this world. Steve definitely doesn’t know him. They’re probably enemies. This is—

Steve strokes the inside of his wrist and Bucky’s breath hitches.

Head so fuzzy it’s making him stupid, chest a cocktail of horrifying, tangled feelings, Bucky leans in to Steve’s touch.

Steve’s mouth curves up into a wicked kind of smile.

  
The barkeep brings them fresh glasses and slowly, somehow, Bucky’s brain makes more words. They murmur together until the air grows thick with smoke; until someone crashes a tray of glasses behind them; until the close heat of Steve’s body makes Bucky flush warm against his skin. They talk—Steve’s eyes tracking Bucky’s movements and Bucky’s eyes tracking Steve’s mouth—until, blessedly, the palace bells ring in the distance.

Steve’s blue eyes flicker away and Bucky sucks in a shallow breath, his stomach tight, his skin sparking hot.

By the time Bucky stands back up, his head feels stuffed with cotton and it’s not just the alcohol that’s making him sway on his feet.

Luckily, Steve is there to hold him steady, his expression hungry, one large, hot hand in the middle of Bucky’s back.

*

It has been nearly four thousand years since Asgard has needed to prepare for the kind of celebration that it will be hosting for the next month. It is no matter that the wedding does not come under auspicious circumstances. It doesn’t even matter that it is just a political arrangement, that Odin’s golden, beloved son is to be wed to a runt of a frost giant. It is still the wedding of the son of Odin and the Frigga, _the_ Crown Prince of the Aesir and as such, Asgard spares no expenses.

The halls of Odin are strung with gold and silver and twinkling lights that float along the high ceilings, like a blanket of stars hovering above the thousands of invited guests. The halls buckle under the weight of opulence, gold glinting from every surface, the walls shining brightly, and the ground itself shimmering, as though every step is taken on a path of dazzling diamonds. The air smells like Frigga’s peonies, bursting with bloom. There is enough food to last a hundred frost giants and a thousand Aesir for a hundred days and there is so much ale that it could fill a river and still overflow the palace barrels, enough to last them all a hundred more nights.

The wedding guests number near two thousand brightly colored, glittering, laughing, raucous aristocrats and dignitaries and diplomats from across almost all realms and planets—Vanaheim and Alfheim and Niflheim and Muspelheim and Contraxia and Sakaar and Xander and even Titan. There are the Jotun courtiers and courtesans and the Aesir royal court and villagers from all across Asgard and servants and hundreds of people Thor could not name even if he had the rest of the month to do so.

“I guess you can’t say no now,” Steve says, helping pin Thor’s cape to his shoulder. Behind him, Fandral and Volstagg are already drinking and Hogun is standing at Thor’s window, watching the palace grounds teeming with people.

“That’s a lot of people to disappoint,” Thor agrees.

“Frigga would still probably let you make an escape,” Steve says. “She has a soft spot for you.”

“Her only son?” Thor says and Steve grins. He thinks about how hesitant Loki had sounded, how reserved and hurt and wary. He thinks about lights reflected in his eyes and a flower in his hair. Thor’s chest tightens.

“You want to marry him,” Steve says, watching his expression.

When Thor says nothing, his friend smiles, squeezing both of his shoulders.

“Then I wish you nothing but the happiest of marriages, old friend,” Steve says. “Anyway, maybe the frost giants aren’t all bad.”

Thor’s eyes narrow at this sudden change in opinion.

“What did you do?”

Steve grins again.

“No one, yet,” he says.

“That is not the question I asked,” Thor groans and Steve laughs, bright and loud.

Thor hopes to the Norns that he’s talking about Bucky, that Bucky has ended up a Jotun here somehow and that Steve is not about to crawl into bed with a random frost giant who will behead Thor’s closest friend and cause an inter-realm incident on his wedding night.

“Well, you look as presentable as you’re going to look,” Steve says and steps back. “Either Prince Loki will find you irresistible or you’re going to have a very awkward time later.”

Behind Steve, Fandral and Volstagg snicker, the absolute traitors.

Hogun, however, shifts and turns back to Thor and Steve.

“It’s time, your highness,” he says.

Thor lets out a nervous breath.

“It’ll be fine,” Steve says, reassuringly. And then follows it up with, “Probably.”

Thor shakes his head in exasperation and Steve squeezes his shoulder.

He lets the Warriors Three—and Steve—escort him out of his chambers and to the throne room.

  
The All-Father stands at the front of the magnificent room, at the place where on Midgard a priest might otherwise be. His father is not always kind and he is often cruel, but today he is both the All-Father, the most powerful being in the Nine Realms, and Thor’s father.

When Thor steps up the golden stairs to stand in front of him, Odin’s eye, so often critical, looks down on him with the kind of open, soft emotion that Thor can only remember having seen once before—just before he had died.

“Father,” Thor says, thickly.

“My son,” Odin says.

Next to him, Frigga appears, resplendent in a gown of gold and green, her hair pulled back and studded with green gems that match her dress.

“I know this is not how you expected it to be,” Frigga says softly, taking her son’s hands, “but that does not mean it isn’t exactly how the Norns have written it for you.”

“Mother?” Thor says, softly and Frigga leans forward, pressing a kiss onto her son’s golden brow.

“There are many kinds of love, my darling, and not all of them start at the beginning,” she says. “Sometimes, they grow when you least expect it. That kind of love can be the most nourishing of all.”

There are many kinds of love, Thor thinks. Love isn’t a fixed, stagnant thing. It is a living creature; it can change from one kind to another, take as many forms as the mind can imagine and then take others besides. As long as there is love to begin with, it will change and it will grow. As long as they give it a chance to live; as long as they allow it to survive.

Now Odin puts a hand on Thor’s shoulder and Thor swallows. He looks up at his father and, to his surprise, his father smiles.

“I hope that you and Prince Loki will be a good match,” Odin says. “I hope you will be kind to one another and good to one another.” A pause. “I hope you will grow together, as good princes, and one day become great kings.

Thor doesn’t know what to say to that. His throat closes with emotion and he thinks, he doesn’t know that he could say anything, even if he did. He wishes, Odin had known to say this, in another world, during another lifetime.

There is the sound of a horn in the distance and then, slowly, the crowd parts.

“He comes,” Odin says. “Your betrothed.”

Thor, his heart hammering in his throat, turns.

The Jotun delegation enter the Asgardian throne room.

  
It isn’t a long walk from the golden entrance to the throne steps, but it seems to take them an unreasonably long time. Or maybe Thor is just impatient. Laufey King, ugly and large, is at the front of the party. Behind him, Thor can see the others trailing—a small party of blue skin and dark furs and, in the middle of them all, someone smaller than the rest, someone who, even from where he stands, Thor can tell is glittering.

Laufey reaches the steps first.

“Welcome, Laufey King,” Odin says, settling his one eye on the vicious King of the Frost Giants. “With your blessing, today we unite two realms too long at war.”

Laufey grunts and sneers, which Thor supposes might be acknowledgement or even his own version of a blessing. He takes a place to the side and is joined by two of his towering bodyguards. Behind them in the procession is a frost giant whose eyes drift past Thor to linger at someone behind him, where Thor is flanked by Steve and the Warriors Three.

“Bucky?” Thor hisses under his breath and the frost giant’s eyes snap back to Thor.

“Finally,” Bucky mutters back at Thor and Thor feels—Norns, he feels an enormous degree of relief.

“What—” Thor begins and Bucky shakes his head quickly and surreptitiously.

“ _Later_ ,” he hisses and then takes his place on the steps below Laufey and his retinue.

Thor is so distracted by Bucky that he almost misses him.

Almost.

There is a light jingling sound and Thor’s attention snaps back in front of him, where the Jotun prince takes the steps up and stops before him.

Here, under the sparkling, vibrant opulence of the Asgardian seat of power, Loki shimmers. The gems in his dark hair catch and throw back the lights hanging in the air. Firelight flickers off of the gold at his neck, on his arms, the chains wrapped around his waist. The dark fur at his shoulder has been replaced by a gauzy, veil of green net, which is also studded with shining gold and bright gems, and drapes over his shoulders and down his back. His dark braid rests on one shoulder, so long it’s nearly down to his nipple. Loki’s dark blue mouth is lined in gold, as are the corners of his eyes and the tops of his lids.

There’s a thin gold chain strung between his horns and the tip of his horns have been dipped in gold too.

Loki glows.

Thor’s throat dries, his eyes widening.

“The dowry will be presented,” Odin says and Fandral and Volstagg bring a chest full of gold and other gems out from behind Odin and set it at Laufey King’s feet. The chest is opened and the light of the jewels glitters in the frost giant’s greedy, red eyes. It is unimaginable wealth, worth more than any prince or princess from any realm could offer.

It is a king’s ransom for a frost giant’s unwanted, runt of a son.

Loki would look self-satisfied, if he didn’t look nervous instead.

It’s that, more than anything, that eases the spike of Thor’s nerves. Thor offers his hands and Loki—his fingers also covered in gold rings, his wrists wrapped in delicate, gold chains—takes them.

“Frigga will now begin the ritual,” Odin says.

Thor barely hears him, he’s so distracted by how luminous Loki looks, how loudly his heart pounds in his ears.

“You look beautiful,” Thor says, quietly.

Beneath the nerves, the corners of Loki’s mouth twitch up.

“I suppose you do not look hideous,” he says and it makes Thor beam.

Frigga says something behind him—in an ancient tongue, something Thor has learned and since forgotten. Around them all, the lights slowly dim and from the palms of her hand, two blooms of flames flicker to life.

Here, in the dark, with only the moonlight streaming in from outside and the glow of Frigga’s flames, Loki looks like molten gold to Thor. His breath catches in his throat.

Loki genuinely smiles at that and tilts his head just so.

Thor sees it then—a blue-purple flower in his hair, glittering in the firelight.

“Your swords,” Frigga says.

Thor lets go of Loki’s hands and reaches for the sword at his belt. Loki’s outfit does not allow for one, so he turns to Bucky, who hands him a long, thin sword of steel and crystal.

They turn toward Frigga.

“Cross them,” she instructs.

Thor and Loki cross their swords.

Frigga reaches forward, grasps the blades of both, and sets them both on fire.

  
**art:** Aesir Thor and Jotun Loki at their wedding ceremony, Frigga presiding and setting their swords on fire; **art by:** nalonzooo

*

It’s a beautiful ceremony, almost achingly so. It is hauntingly, extraordinarily romantic.

The hall is dark, except for the twin blades, both set aflame. Frigga steps back and the flames burn brighter and brighter, until they meld into ropes of molten gold, braids of golden, burning light wrapping around the steel, crawling down Thor and Loki’s wrists, snaking up their arms and circling their throats and crawling down their other arm.

The crowd gasps and the ropes burn brighter, the golden shifting to a light so bright, it’s like looking into a burning star.

In the middle of this, Thor and Loki watch one another. The way Thor looks at Loki makes Bucky want to look away. It makes him angry, irrationally so, or sad, unsettled in a way he can’t quite name.

It’s not because of this that he does it.

It’s just that the chest is opened and set at Laufey’s feet and Bucky sees it then, in the middle of gold coins and twinkling jewels.

The golden ropes around Thor and Loki fade and the lights slowly flicker back to life across the ceiling of the room.

Everyone is distracted—even the greedy frost giant king. This is why Bucky does it. He doesn’t think he will have another chance.

He darts forward, sinking to his knees in front of the chest of treasures and reaching forward, closes his fingers around a glowing, blue shard.

*

“By the laws of the Norns, you are bound, now and forever,” Frigga says.

Loki smiles at him and Thor cups his cheek, interminably fond.

Loki jingles lightly as he reaches up on his toes and Thor leans forward, tilts his mouth so that he will meet Loki’s.

He is an inch away when he feels a sharp jerk behind his navel.

Thor gasps.

The last thing Thor sees before the familiar, shimmering haze swallows him is Loki’s mouth askew and his eyes, wide and red, looking at him as though this life might finally have shown him a single measure of kindness.

Then Thor blinks and he’s gone.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmmm tell me your feelings about Aesir Steve with Jotun Bucky, just let me know everything. 
> 
> Also, I cannot even talk about the wedding ceremony art by Nikki. I've actually lost all ability to speak. Goodbye, possibly forever.


	8. Chapter Eight. [ third oddity: vampires ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor can feel it under his skin too, something that crawls up his spine and sets his teeth on edge. He pulls his mouth open and two sharp canines rest against his bottom lip, sharper and longer than he remembers them being, sharpened to a point, sharp enough to pierce, sharp enough to be—fangs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something to get you through this, the 300th day of the U.S. Presidential elections. 
> 
> **cw:** violence, blood, moral ambiguity, slutty vampires??

The last thing Thor sees before the familiar, shimmering haze swallows him is Loki’s eyes, wide and red, looking up at him.

“Loki,” Thor gasps as he feels a sharp jerk at his navel. Loki’s mouth opens in surprise and Thor reaches for him, desperately, fingertips grazing Loki’s cool skin before Thor turns to space dust.

  
His insides scramble, his consciousness stretched long and pulled thin, like his essence has been melted to rubber and kneaded like sticky dough.

He gasps again, interdimensional space rubble scraping against his lungs, and when he opens his eye, Loki’s mouth is an inch away from him. Loki jingles lightly as he reaches up on his toes, tilts his face forward, and kisses him.

There’s alcohol on his breath and another taste on his tongue, something with a metallic tang, sharp and coppery. Thor digs his fingers into the side of Loki’s jaw, head buzzing, and kisses him deeper, just to chase that taste.

Loki makes a pleased sound, so satisfied it’s nearly a purr.

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” Loki says, a wicked smile in his voice, and Thor’s body reacts before he can process why the room seems so skewed to one side or why half of it is shrouded in dark.

He grasps the small of Loki’s back and drags him closer and Loki lifts himself up easily, wrapping his legs around Thor’s middle, his long fingers scrubbing through Thor’s short-cropped hair. The kiss, already setting his blood to boil, grows deeper, messier, with quick tongues and sharp teeth, a possessive growl ripped from the back of his throat.

It’s only when Thor’s back hits something hard, jarring the two of them, and Loki’s tongue briefly leaves his mouth that he manages to gasp enough to gather a single fucking brain cell.

The first thing Thor realizes is that he can only see Loki’s face through one eye.

The second is that Loki’s face is deathly pale, and there’s blood dribbling down the corner of his mouth.

The third thing Thor realizes, he does so by accident. That is, he’s staring at Loki’s bright green, glazed eyes, and his bruised lips with red splashed at the corner, and Thor feels something within him _snap_ —an insatiable hunger, or a bottomless ache that he instinctively knows how to fill.

Loki’s mouth curves up into that same knowing, wicked smile and before Thor knows what he’s doing, he’s leaning forward and licking up the blood—every last drop.

His own blood reacts as the taste hits the back of his throat, singing hot, his heart rate spiking—or well, it would be, if he had one.

If Thor had a heart rate.

Wait.

He pulls back slowly, head muddy and confused.

Loki puts a cold hand on his chest and leans in to kiss him again.

“I brought you a present, my love,” he says. He kisses Thor again and again until Thor’s head is foggy and his blood is aching again. Then, when he’s good and breathless and, frankly, unable to piece together a single coherent thought, Loki kisses up the scruff of his jaw to his ear and whispers, “They’re nice and bloodied, just the way you like them.”

Thor, his eyes fluttering, trying, distantly, to grasp what’s going on, hears himself ask, “Did Valkyrie leave any for me?”

Loki laughs and his—no, Thor frowns, his knowledge shifting, clarifying something— _their_ voice sinks into his spine, their laughter like a breath of music that Thor’s body is tuned to.

“She knows what happened last time,” Loki grins and it’s vicious, but strangely fond. “No, they still have _some_ fight left in them. She knows you don’t like an easy meal.”

“What’s the point?” Thor says, his voice a deep growl. “If they don’t fight?”

“Some of us just want the blood, precious,” Loki says. “The adrenaline I will leave to you and Valkyrie.”

“You never did understand me,” Thor says. His eyes—no, _eye_ , watches Loki, heavily.

Loki, who is still being held up by the strength of Thor’s arms, leans forward and drags a long, black-painted nail down Thor’s mouth.

“Is that what you want?” Loki asks. “To be understood?”

Thor’s mouth tingles from the touch to it.

“Yes,” he says. Loki drags their nail down Thor’s bottom lip toward his chin and then down under, down, down, down, until it’s pricked blood at the bottom of his throat. Thor shudders. “No.”

“No,” Loki agrees, pleased. “Now stop being contrary and have your meal. You know they don’t taste nearly as good when their fear has settled.”

Thor doesn’t know how he knows, but he does know it. That it’s half the reason he likes it when they fight. Fear adds a certain flavor, but desperation adds another. When they’re both desperate and afraid? Well, that is the kind of taste Thor will happily burn villages down for.

Well, they’re not so much villages anymore, he supposes. Apartment complexes. Condominiums. Oh he misses the thrill of the 18th century.

Loki eases themself down from Thor’s body and takes a step back. Today, they’re in carefully tailored black velvet pants, with a leather belt cinching their narrow waist. Their blouse is completely sheer net, except for a black snake of velvet that twists from one shoulder, across their chest, and disappears down where the blouse is tucked into their pants. Over this, they’re wearing a black satin blazer that’s bunched up at the arms and a black-beaded rosary around their neck, a silver cross resting at the base of their throat. They stand whole inches taller than usual in six-inch stilettos with gold snakes for heels. Their dark curls are pulled back with a velvet ribbon and their mouth is stained a faint cherry red that’s now smeared across their bottom lip.

Loki smiles and Thor’s eyes flickers all the way down and then all the way back up.

“Loki,” Thor says, voice rough, eyes widening, and Loki smirks.

They crook a single finger and step down from the elevated area they had both been standing on.

Thor, dazed, confused, and not a little cloudy with lust, follows after.

He manages to gather only a brief moment of wit and glance about him before they leave the room. The room is enormous and dim, with dark tapestries hanging from the walls and candelabras ensconced into recesses. The air is heavy and the space is dark, but he can see through the gloom clearly, as though it’s making his vision brighter, to be surrounded by so much black.

Loki’s heels click against the ground as they retreat and not willing to be left behind, Thor quickly follows. However, that doesn’t stop him from registering, in the back recesses of his mind, that he and Loki had been groping each other on a platform of some sort—and that the hard thing he had banged into earlier hadn’t been the wall, as he had assumed, but, instead, a very large coffin.

  
Thor follows close behind Loki, who lazily winds their way from the room with the coffin through near-black hallways lit only with neon lighting strips set into the junctures where the walls meet the low ceiling. He gets an arm around Loki’s middle and Loki makes a pleased noise at that, dragging a nail over Thor’s bare arm, the point of it pricking from the back of Thor’s wrist and up a vein that seems to throb under the touch.

Loki leads them down one hallway, until the lighting strip turns from neon purple to a neon teal, and then down a set of stairs that are lined in neon green. They seem to be leading him through some kind of underground mess of twisting corridors toward a cellar of some sort. Thor is wary, his senses on full alert, but there’s a part of him that knows that Loki would never hurt him, or at least no more than _he_ wanted to be hurt. Still, Thor’s dead pulse spikes at the base of his throat and the hairs stand up at the back of his nape.

They reach the bottom of the narrow stairs and Loki lets him go.

“Aw,” they say. “They started without us.”

There’s some kind of jeering, a light commotion from the middle of the room. There are bodies packed in tight, pale-skinned and erratic-eyed and bound in leather, and each of them pulsing to something playing over the speakers, to the energy of the room, something held close and palpating, like a heartbeat created from whatever is hanging in the air.

Thor can feel it under his skin too, something that crawls up his spine and sets his teeth on edge. He pulls his mouth open and two sharp canines rest against his bottom lip, sharper and longer than he remembers them being, sharpened to a point, sharp enough to pierce, sharp enough to be—fangs.

The room around them is cavernous, but dark too, with neon piped lighting along the walls and neon-colored spotlights shining down on a specific area of the club—of the _den_. There are large windows of darkly colored mosaic, nothing behind them but concrete, and backlit with more neon. There’s a long, well-stocked bar to one end of the room, rows and rows of brightly lit glass shelves of glass bottles, nestled behind three thick pillars, and guarded by a dark woman with bright gold eyes and dark braids twisted in cornrows across half of her head. She’s wearing dark overalls with nothing underneath but a black lace bra and a bright, coiled necklace of pure gold that’s spiraling up her neck.

Thor catches her eyes and she tilts her head just so, in a show of acknowledgment, if not respect.

Thor knows her—not from here, but from there, although he supposes there’s something about her that doesn’t change from one reality to the next. There’s another woman at the bar, sitting across from Valkyrie, a pale-skinned woman with short hair that’s cut straight at her shoulders. She’s in some kind of halter that shows off a bare back inked in viking imagery.

Valkyrie’s attention shifts from Thor to Sif and then her mouth twists into half a smile before Sif leans forward, her bare arms against the dark wood of the bar, and Valkyrie kisses her, fangs descended and all.

The air is hot and humid and pulsing and Thor’s mouth feels dry. The den is lit in a low neon-purple today and the color is throbbing behind Thor’s eyelids. His head hurts and his throat hurts and distantly, he wonders where he’s lost Bucky to now and whether, wherever Bucky is, his body is also aching with the sharp need to be fed.

Thor feels a hand at his elbow and he turns.

“In the middle, my liege,” a young woman with long, red hair and large eyes says. “They’re waiting for you.”

Thor frowns, his brows knitting together.

“Wanda?” he asks.

“Your highness,” Wanda says, in that faintly scratchy voice. “Don’t keep them waiting.”

Thor sees his reflection against a wall of mirrors and his brain itches, because he’s read Midgardian lore and he didn’t think vampires had reflections. His is as familiar as it is foreign. Thor, with his short-cropped, dirty blond hair and a black eyepatch over the eye he lost to Hela three realities ago. His lower face is covered with a grizzled beard and there’s a scar that runs down half of his face, from the top left of his forehead, down across the eye he’s lost, a sharp gash that ends just above his top lip. He’s in leather pants and a sleeveless, leather top that leaves little room to breathe. Around one bicep is a gold cuff—a snake that wraps around. He has no delusions about where that’s from, or who that belongs to.

The song changes, the air around them pulsating.

“Your highness?” Wanda asks again and this time it’s with an edge Thor can’t ignore. He turns away from his reflection and Wanda smiles, something sharp around the corners.

He follows after her and the crowd parts without question, vampires with hungry eyes and downturned mouths moving out of the way for their king.

In the middle, Loki has a knee on someone’s chest. The person—a nondescript man with sandy hair and a physique that indicates muscle that’s turned to fat—struggles against them, his shouts lost to the beat of the music, his body convulsing as he tries to swing and claw his way out from under Loki.

“Loki,” Thor says, disapproving, and Loki looks up at him.

They pout.

“What? I was just having some fun,” Loki says.

“What did I tell you about playing with my food?” Thor asks.

Loki looks just put out.

“If I play with it too much, there’s not enough left for you,” they say, pouting. “But you were taking so long.”

Loki’s taken their satin jacket off and the neon light shines down above them, their pale, white skin glowing purple under the net blouse. Their jet black ponytail shines across their shoulder and when they look up at Thor, their green eyes shimmer.

They’re exquisite.

Thor feels something sharp pulse in his chest, but it isn’t thirst this time. This is pure, unadulterated adoration. It’s obsession, tempered only by devotion. He loves them in a way that could tear apart minds; he loves them in a way that borders violent. If Loki asked anything of Thor—of this Thor—maybe, of any Thor—there would be no hesitation.

“I’m here now,” Thor says quietly, and Loki’s mouth curves up into a smile.

The man under Loki shouts louder—a blunt, dull thing that barely disturbs the bass pumping through the den’s thick air.

Loki lifts up three fingers, watching Thor.

He puts down one.

He puts down another.

There’s only his index finger left.

Thor’s blood pulses.  
“Go,” Loki says, grinning, and takes away the last finger.

The man gasps as Loki flits away from him. He scrambles to his feet, eyes wide—terrified. The rest of the crowd hisses, but they know this meal is for Thor alone. They back up, as though giving him free passage.

The man doesn’t look back—he starts to run.

Thor gives him a five second head start. Then he follows.

  
The man makes it as far as the bar before Thor catches him. He grasps him by the throat and lifts him clean up into the air. The man screams, struggling with his entire body, but it’s barely a fight and Thor, baring his teeth, slams him back against the pillar hard.

“Oy!” Valkyrie’s voice comes from the bar, complaining about the disruption to her service.

Thor ignores her. His blood is singing, his adrenaline spiking. The man’s eyes are wide with terror, his limbs scrambling. He’s saturated with it—fear and panic, that edge of desperation.

“Please,” the man finds his voice enough to beg. “ _Please._ ”

Thor bares his fangs.

“Begging will hardly help you now,” Loki’s voice comes over Thor’s shoulder. They drawl, unimpressed and vicious. “Anyway, let he without sin cast the first stone. Is that how the saying goes?”

“I think that’s a paraphrase,” Wanda says. She stands to Thor’s other side, her arms crossed at her chest, her head tilted in thought.

“Well, same thing,” Loki says. They look up at the sandy haired man, their eyes glittering with vice. “I don’t suppose he working on Wall Street to help the homeless.”

“Oh he’s one of _those_ ,” Wanda says, wrinkling her nose. “I hate the way their blood tastes. Like cheap vodka and unforgivable greed.”

“Please,” the man begs. “I’ll do anything.”

“Anything, he says,” another voice comes from behind Thor. This is only vaguely familiar, but a flicker of his gaze and he sees a tall, lanky young man with a shock of white hair snake an arm around Wanda’s side. “That could be useful. Do we have anyone on Wall Street yet?”

“That’s Fandral’s day job,” Wanda says. “I think.”

“Fandral has a job?” Pietro asks.

“Allegedly,” Loki offers.

“Huh,” Pietro says, after a moment. “Is he smart enough for that?”

“Enough,” Thor growls, irritated by the interruptions around him. His fingers squeeze the man’s throat and the man spasms, kicking his arms and legs. “Now, say please again.”

“Please.” The man begs. “I’ll give you anything—cars? Stocks. My firm—we know important people. Senators. Presidents. Anything you want can be yours, just—”

“Oh he talks too much,” Loki says. “I’m bored. End this, Thor.”

Far be it for Thor to ever agree with Loki, but they had a point. Thor was growing tired from his blood headache.

He grins and lets his fingers loose. The man falls to his knees. He scrambles up, hope lighting through him for a moment and he tries to get away again, but that’s when Thor grabs him by the back of his expensive shirt and drags him back.

He loves it when they have a sliver of hope in them. It makes their fear taste all the sweeter.

The man is still shouting when Thor sinks his fangs into the man’s neck and drinks.

  
The rush of first blood after a fast has Thor’s own blood pulsing. The blood fills his mouth, sliding down his throat like warmed honey, heating him up from the inside, like flames flickering through his veins. He gasps at the sensation, the heat crawling down his throat and flooding through his limbs before clawing its way up the back of his neck. He shivers all over from the sensation, the drink as intoxicating as any orgasm. He closes his eyes, inhaling the coppery scent, and the man goes limp in his arms before Thor throws him onto the ground.

There are hands on Thor that pull him back and up, cool hands that crawls up under Thor’s shirt, fingertips sinking into suddenly heated skin. Hands that slam him back onto that same pillar and press to his burning neck, and then Loki pulls him back down toward them, mouth on Thor’s mouth, prying his mouth open, and kissing the blood off his tongue, licking the dribbling blood from the corners of his lips.

They kiss, heated and messy and desperately aroused, and Loki drinks, and around them, the den throbs brightly, a neon-colored nightmare of night creatures and bloodthirst set on fire.

*

Bucky opens his eyes with a sharp gasp. His fingers are clutched around the blue shard and his skin is crawling with the scraping sensation of interdimensional jumping. He has just enough time to adjust to the dim light of a dim alleyway and force breath air into his lungs. Then he feels the cold barrel of a gun to his head.

“Die,” Steve says, his eyes burning with unadulterated hatred, and pulls the trigger.

  
Bucky’s reflexes kick in immediately and he ducks and twists out of the way just as the shot blasts through the space where his head used to be. It blows into the corner of the brick building behind them, taking a chunk of the wall with an awfully loud crack.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps, his head ringing. “What the fuck?”

Steve doesn’t bother explaining and Bucky doesn’t have the time to complain. Steve re-aims his gun and Bucky twists himself out of the way, flinging his body to the side just as Steve shoots again. Bucky hisses as his shoulder slams into the brick wall.

Pain lances up his side and he inhales a sharp breath before flinging himself forward toward Steve’s middle. Steve’s not quick enough to swing the silver pistol around and he shouts as Bucky gets his arms around him, slamming into his body. The two of them tumble backwards into a row of old, steel trashcans. The pistol goes skittering down the alleyway with a loud, jarring clang.

Steve lets out a pained sound, but he’s immediately scrabbling around the inside of his trench coat for something. Bucky, panting, has his knees in between Steve’s legs, one hand slamming Steve’s left arm to the ground while the other quickly circles Steve’s other wrist, just Steve’s fingers close around a knife.

“ _Get the fuck off me_ ,” Steve growls and tries to buck Bucky off, but Bucky grinds his knee up toward Steve’s crotch. The two of them struggle, Steve spitting mad, and Bucky trying to keep the knife from finding his carotid artery.

“Stop,” Bucky growls back. “ _Stop!_ ”

Steve manages to loosen the arm that’s pinned against the ground and he slams it up against Bucky’s bruised shoulder. Bucky lets out a cry of pain and is distracted for the second it takes Steve to slam his knee up and free the caught hand and grab the knife and then Bucky’s being flipped over, his back slammed against the ground.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Bucky yells and turns his head out of the way just before Steve drives the knife into the place his face used to be. The sharp blade still knicks his cheek and a thin rivet of cold blood begins to slowly dribble down the cut.

That’s when something changes.

Bucky gasps, a deep, endless breath that forces its way out of his lungs. His blood heats, his pupils dilating.

Above him, Steve’s eyes widen, the rage and hatred knocked sideways, briefly, by something between shock and—is that fear?

Bucky’s head feels like it’s cleaving in two, his throat drier than sand, his fangs—fuck, his _fangs_ protruding over his bottom lip.

“You turned Sam,” Steve says. His voice is shaking, his wet, blond hair fanning down the sides of his face as he looks down at Bucky.

It’s raining.

The streetlights seem to flicker from the mouth of the alley. A car drives by, the sound of wet tires on wet concrete. There’s the buzzing sound of a neon sign advertising something above the brick building. _City Island Lobster House. Open 7 Days a Week._

“I didn’t,” Bucky rasps.

Did he? Bucky’s memories are fuzzy, his brain half-foggy and trying to process which reality he’s living through now and what he might know from it. There are no horns on his head this time. Steve is not a Norse God warrior. There’s rain and there’s neon lighting and there’s Steve, hovering over him with a knife that he wants to bury desperately in Bucky’s chest, his dark coat wet and a pendant at his throat. Bucky can’t see it in the dark, but he thinks he recognizes the shape of it. It’s a Saint. Not one Bucky recognizes.

“Then who?” Steve bites out. “One of you did. Someone turned him. You robbed him of his life. Who?”

Bucky lets out a rough laugh and Steve’s free hand goes to his throat. His fingers close around it, squeezing, and Bucky feels the air restrict. He tries to gasp out. His head is spinning. It’s not because of the choking.

“Loki, maybe,” Bucky says—tries to say. “I don’t know. He’s still fucking alive.”

“What?” Steve says. He loosens his grip. Slightly.

“If he’s turned,” Bucky says. “Sam. It’s not robbing if he’s still alive.”

“He’s a fucking vampire,” Steve says, angrily. “He’s undead.”

“The un part is pretty integral, pal,” Bucky says and tries to laugh again, the sound choked and scratchy, until Steve, in his building rage, begins to tighten the noose again.

Bucky’s fingers are tingling. The blood drips down his cheek and that reminds him—Jesus fucking Christ. His throat is so parched. He tries to dig his fingers into his consciousness, but it’s quickly slipping through.

“Steve,” Bucky tries again. He can barely make the sound, but it’s urgent—he needs to be let go. If Steve doesn’t move, then—

“Stop it,” Steve says. He’s glaring, his eyes flashing, his jaw a tight line.

“What?” Bucky rasps.

“Saying my name,” Steve spits out. “Like you know me. We’re not—”

“Shut up, Steve,” Bucky says. His chest is heaving. His head rings. “How often do we end up like this? I’m going to call you your fucking name.”

Steve falters and that’s all the pause Bucky needs. He drives his knee up and loosens his right hand enough to slam his palm against Steve’s ribs. Steve lets out a grunt of pain and falls back enough for Bucky to shove him off, stumble to his knees, and shoot up—quickly—to the nearest wall, leaning against it in support.

Steve backs off, one knee on the ground and the other pulled up, half-kneeling, his coat dragging along with the trash. He looks up at Bucky, his face twisted in pain and hurt, and his fingers close around the cold metal of his Cabot 1911.

Bucky shakes his head, his limbs shaking. He opens his mouth, about to say something, about to tell Steve to _cut it out_ , when his heart stops.

Well, it hadn’t exactly been beating before, before it stops anyway, just seizes in his chest. His head, pounding, buzzes with the scent, his mouth suddenly wet. He can’t see his eyes, but they turn darker, the color of spilled blood. It knocks through him, sinks into his skin and draws out his fangs.

Steve must realize it at the same time Bucky does. He puts a hand to his side and it comes away, slick with something sticky and—red.

“Fuck,” he breathes out.

It’s been too long since Bucky’s fed. He understands this now. His head is pounding and he flexes his pale fingers. There’s an energy in them, something thrumming under his skin. It’s dark. It’s _hungry_.

He’s so hungry.

Bucky bares his fangs and Steve, his fingers on his pistol, watches him with a growing sense of clear horror. His mouth hangs askew.

Bucky shakes his head with force. He curls a hand into the brick behind him.

He opens his mouth and the sharp points of his teeth glimmer in the moonlight.

“Steve,” Bucky rasps, with the last remaining rational thought in his head. “Run.”

  
It’s an impenetrable haze in his head, but he hears the thick soles of his leather boots clod along the wet sidewalk and he trusts his instincts to carry him down the right streets and the right alleys until there’s a dim flickering neon sign above an open cellar door with dark metal railings and a staircase that leads down.

  
Bucky grits his teeth, ignoring the sharp ringing in his head, and grasps the railing as he takes the stairs down to _Ragnarok._

  
The den is thrumming with the kind of frenzied energy that Bucky wouldn’t have the wherewithal to withstand on a good night, let alone one where he’s warped in from another reality and almost gotten shot point blank between the eyes by his best friend.

Steve had taken his advice and run, which was just as well because Bucky had maybe had a tenuous fifteen second grasp on his sanity before it would have snapped under the weight and scent of Steve’s blood.

It had been enough for Steve to get away and Bucky had driven his own fist into his stomach to keep from immediately giving chase. When he had finally stumbled out of the alleyway, Steve was gone and Bucky had forced himself to stumble in the opposite direction, putting as much distance between them as he could.

He hadn’t picked up anyone else along the way, but that was only through sheer, dumb luck.

The den’s air stinks of blood and the hollow behind his ears ache, as does his jaw, and, strangely, his eyeballs.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters and digs his gloved palms into his eyes to relieve some of the pressure. It only helps a little and when he withdraws his hands, he feels someone’s gaze burning hot on him.

Bucky looks up, but most of the vampires are busy grinding against each other in the middle of the den, bodies writhing together, heads tilted back, soaking up the hazy energy of satiated bloodlust that always lingers after a feeding.

He runs a tongue over his dry lips and scans the club for the source of it, until—

Valkyrie—Bucky’s only met her a handful of times before on New Asgard, but there’s no mistaking that face—is pouring something dark into a goblet behind the bar. The purple neon lights reflect off of tiny gold rings embedded into her braids. She sets the goblet down next to someone.

With their back to her, legs crossed one over the other, arms leaning back against the bar, Loki’s green eyes try to bore a hole into the middle of Bucky’s head.

“Shit,” Bucky mutters.

One side of Loki’s mouth curves up into a smile. They lift the goblet without looking and tilts it toward Bucky, as though in toast. Bucky knows better than that. His creator is a lot of things, but unexpectedly kind is not one of them.

Bucky grits his teeth and shoves his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. There are straps across the bottom and at the shoulders, chains that catch neon light and reflect it back into his eyes. He jangles lightly as he crosses the floor.

He comes to a stop in front of Loki, equally reluctant and on edge, the ache behind his eyes brewing into a migraine. Loki says nothing, but when they shift, the light catches on the golden snakes wrapped around their ankles from stilettos Bucky is almost certain cost as much as half the den itself.

“Well look what the bat dragged in,” Loki says.

It’s unfair because the club is thumping with music and the barely restrained cacophony of fifty horny vampires, but Loki’s voice is still crystal clear in Bucky’s ears.

“I don’t want to hear it, Loki,” Bucky says, tiredly. He rubs a gloved hand across the top of his head, where his hair is slicked back and pulled into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck.

“Hear what?” Loki says, with the hint of a smirk. “Would you like to take a peek at your reflection or should I tell you how you look?”

“I said I don’t want to hear it,” Bucky growls. He pulls the stool out next to Loki and dumps himself into it.

Loki pivots on their stool to watch their creation, their favorite vampireling. They lean their elbow on top of the bar and rest their chin in their palm.

“Loki,” Bucky warns. “I have a headache.”

“Now why would that be?” Loki says. They seem amused. “You have bruises under your eyes, pet. Your skin is terrible. Is that blood on your neck?”

They reach forward without asking and Bucky suddenly feels ice cold fingertips pressed to his collarbone, which is exposed, along with half his chest, above a nice black shirt that’s now filthy with grime and has a slash ripped down the side.

“What did I say about asking!” Bucky exclaims and shoves Loki off.

This only seems to amuse Loki further, although they retract their hand and use it to drum into the side of the goblet. Bucky’s eyes flicker toward the dark liquid. He can smell it. It makes his teeth ache.

“Tsk,” Loki says. “Are you trying this again?”

Bucky lets out an aggrieved sigh through his nose.

“It’s like you never learn,” Loki says. They shove a hand into Bucky’s hair and Bucky jerks back again, scowling. “The more you ignore it, the more vicious you will become. It’s a mercy, this way.”

“What way, Loki?” Bucky says, glaring. “Killing someone? Drinking against their will? Turning them and cursing them to—”

“Oh spare me your sanctimonious bullshit, James,” Loki says. “You aren’t new to this. How much blood was on your hands before I even found you?”

Bucky’s guilt—a living, thriving creature tangled in his chest, regardless of reality—feels heavy in his throat.

“Tell me how we are different than other predators?” Loki says. “At every level of the animal kingdom, there are predators and there are prey. Humans were at the top of their chain for far too long. Now we are at the top. This is nature.”

Bucky has a feeling he’s had this argument more than once with this Loki. It doesn’t make it any better that Loki makes a reasonable amount of sense. Jesus fuck, he can’t drink from other humans. It’s one thing to have been brainwashed by HYDRA into murdering for an agenda and another thing to voluntarily murder humans because he needs their blood to survive.

He doesn’t want to feel his own culpability. Or, at least, he’d like to not remember it.

“It’s different,” Bucky mumbles, for lack of a better argument. It’s fucking weak, but that’s all he can manage, given his current state.

His blood pulses and his migraine increases. It’s like a fucking sledgehammer inside his skull. He covers his eyes with a hand.

He hears a noise—a derisive, scoffing sound—and then the sound of a stool screeching back and stiletto heels against the concrete floor.

“Drink,” Loki instructs.

Bucky opens his eyes and the goblet has been pushed toward him.

“This is pathetic,” Loki says.

“Loki—”

“No. I don’t want to see you like this again,” Loki says, their eyes flashing. “I do not care what moral qualms you still have about killing. Whatever humanity you think you have, whatever absolution you’re looking for—you won’t find it. You’re a vampire, James. Not even God can wish that away.”

Bucky clenches his fists, his fingers digging into the palms of his hands. The den’s beat sticks to the back of his throat, to the back of his eyes, a heavy, sticky pounding drilling into his blood.

“Finish your meal and then come find us.”

Bucky looks at the goblet dubiously and then back at Loki.

Loki rolls their eyes and straightens their sheer blouse. There’s an embroidered snake, dark against their pale skin.

“New outfit?” Bucky asks.

“A welcome home present,” Loki says, with a thin smile. “For Thor.”

“Thor?” Bucky’s head is a mess, but his heartbeat quickens. He straightens. “He’s here? Where is he?”

“Oh, you know,” Loki says and waves their hand dismissively. They lean forward and grasp Bucky’s jaw with long-clawed fingers. “Remember what I said, pet.”

They press a cold kiss to Bucky’s mouth and step back.

Bucky watches them go, cutting easily through the crowded dance floor as everyone parts like water for their Queen. His skin still tingles from where their nails dug in, long after they’ve left.

  
“They saved it for you, you know,” Valkyrie says, from behind the bar. She’s wiping down a glass, watching him closely.

“What?” Bucky looks back at her.

“Loki,” she says. “It’s from a feeding, earlier. Thor didn’t finish and they wouldn’t let anyone else drain the rest. They bloodlet him for you.”

Bucky frowns, eyeing the gold-rimmed goblet, filled halfway to the top with fresh blood.

“I think that’s their way of showing they care,” Valkyrie says.

“Great,” Bucky mutters. His irritation is acute, his frustration mounting to near unchecked levels. There’s a ringing tone in his ears and his hands are shaking and—

“Drink,” Valkyrie says and pointedly moves the goblet toward him.

Bucky has no desire to drink human blood, in this reality or any other. He stares the goblet down as though he can will it away through sheer willpower.

When that doesn’t work, he wraps his fingers around the middle.

“Fuck,” he grinds out.

He sighs and, closing his eyes, brings the glass up to his mouth. He drains the blood in seconds and when he’s done, licks his lips for anything left over.

  
It runs through him like water through the desert, his skin lighting up, the ache at the back of his throat washing smooth.

Bucky’s head stops pounding after the infusion of fresh blood. He lets out a rattling sigh of relief, the bass from the club finally fading enough that his brain stops feeling like it’s going to cleave in two. He pushes himself up from his chair, scrounges up some change to leave a pitiable tip for Valkyrie, and is able to push his way through the den toward the back staircase. The back door is barricaded by a large Black man with golden eyes and dreads twisting down to his waist. He has his arms crossed at his almost bare, barrel chest and his gaze, when Bucky approaches, is as thorough as it is inscrutable.

“Bucky Barnes,” he says.

This is not a man that Bucky has met in his own lifetime, but he remembers him from a brief moment on a bridge made of a rainbow. it takes only a moment of searching through his half-memories here to find the correct name.

“Heimdall,” Bucky says with a nod. “How’s it going?”

“Another night, another feeding,” Heimdall says, tilting his head toward the mess of bodies.

“Throw anyone out yet?”

“Two membership revocations,” Heimdall says, his mouth twitching. “One vampire will be having a very bad morning.”

Bucky winces. He’s never been on the receiving end of one of Heimdall’s “peacekeeping” operations, but he’s seen them. Or the after-effects of them. Try feeding when your fang’s been broken in half. Luckily vampire fangs regrow fairly quickly, but the process of ripping one out to grow another one in its place is as close to agony as the undead come.

“Thor’s back?” Bucky asks once he can get the image of broken fangs out of his head.

He doesn’t know where Thor went, but Loki had said. Bucky shoves his hands into his pockets again and tries not to feel nervous. This reality is too happy about bloodshed for their stay to be lengthy. Wherever the next blue shard is, he wants to find it sooner rather than later.

“Aye,” Heimdall says. “Earlier this evening. You might find him in the throne room. But—”

“But?”

Heimdall’s mouth twists into a wry smile.

“You know how Loki gets, after the King has been away,” he says.

Bucky doesn’t really know, but he also doesn’t feel like asking. Whatever Loki’s doing to Thor, he’ll just have to deal with it.

“Thanks for the warning,” Bucky says instead. He nods behind Heimdall. “Can I go up?”

Heimdall nods and moves out of the way.

Bucky looks up the staircase behind him—the dark, narrow hallway flickering under neon green light. There’s an unsettled, paranoid feeling that grows as he climbs up the stairs. The hairs stand at the back of his neck, his fingers growing stiff with cold.

Everything about this reality puts him on edge, although he couldn’t say why. Maybe it’s the bloodlust or sheer viciousness of everyone he’s met so far. There’s an edge of danger here that’s different from the other realities they’ve been in so far. They could die here, he thinks. And he doesn’t know what would happen if they did.

He and Thor need to find a way to get out of here, Bucky decides, before they have to kill someone.

Or—Bucky remembers a cold pistol pressed to the center of his forehead—before someone else decides to kill them.  
  


* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, did you expect the Halloween vibes to stop simply because "it is no longer October"? That was foolish of you.
> 
> TALK TO ME ABOUT THESE VAMPIRES.


	9. Chapter Nine. [third oddity: vampires]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mind if I sit here?” Steve asks.
> 
> That doesn’t help the confusion.
> 
> “You gonna shoot me if I say no?” Bucky asks. 
> 
> Steve offers him a thin smile, if not exactly apologetic.
> 
> “No Man’s Land,” Steve says. “Either of us shoot in here and we’ll go through hell getting driven off the island.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE SURVIVED. I'M SO RELIEVED. Now it's time for you to let go of that breath you've been holding since 2016 and read about some horny vampires.
> 
>  **cw:** some exhibitionism, more slutty vampires :')

Loki is draped across his lap. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, except Thor is trying to concentrate on Fandral’s update on some vampire territorial dispute and division of ammunition that Thor only half understands and _Loki_ is dragging their fingernails down Thor’s abdomen and not-so-subtly dipping them under the waistband of Thor’s pants.

“Loki,” Thor says, somewhere between a growl and a barely restrained groan.

It’s not helpful to be at the head of the throne room where their coven is milling, awaiting their leaders’ directions, while his Queen tries to get him off in front of all of them. Or stroke him to the point where he _needs_ to get off. One of those. Both of those. Norns, he cannot think with Loki’s hand on his dick.

“What?” Loki says, innocently. As though. Loki has never been innocent, in any life that Thor has known them, but they are particularly lacking shame and innocence in this one.

“—and the Vanir Clan—”

“Isn’t that—” Thor tries and can’t help the way his voice hitches as Loki’s thumb grazes his tip. Cold fingers wrap around him and he hisses. “Ah!—I mean.” He clears his throat. Well, he tries. “Hogun— _Norns_ , Loki!”

Loki grins, although they do not stop their ministrations as they tilt their head toward Fandral. Fandral, as with the other vampires that stand at half-attention around the room—Volstagg to one side with Hogun next to him, Baldur and Tyr with their heads bent toward one another, murmuring quietly, Wanda and Pietro, lounging against a table of pure gold that’s laden with fruits and cheeses and goblets of blood, and Valkyrie and Sif near the back, who rather than pay attention to their King and Queen, seem to be making out with no regard for anyone who might be watching—seems unperturbed by this display of...well, whatever one wants to call it.

Public display of affection does not quite seem to capture the extent to which Loki is attempting to drive Thor out of mind and pants.

“Well, I don’t know what they want us to do about it,” they say. Loki’s voice is calm, almost droll, even though they are spread across Thor’s lap, both legs hanging off the arm of the throne, one hand playing with their rosary, the other playing with Thor’s—

“All weapons are run through you, my liege,” Fandral says. “The Alfheim Clan wants a better deal, I gather, and to cut the Vanir out because of their, ah, transgression.”

Loki seems to look over lazily at Hogun, who just shrugs.

“They should have marked their territory better,” the former Vanir vampire says.

“See?” Loki grins. “They should have marked their territory better. They know the rules of the streets. We can’t play mother and father to every Clan that loses a scuffle.”

Thor’s starting to sweat. He wants to pay attention, but Loki’s fingers are cruelly curved around his length, stroking him to hardness with a swiftness he can’t exactly ignore. His blood rushes south and he tips his forehead onto the side of Loki’s head. He can’t see Loki’s grin from here, but he knows they have one, wide and pleased and just a little crooked across their face. Bastard. A clever twist of their fingers and Thor has to bite down on Loki’s neck to keep from making a loud noise.

“I don’t think the Alfheimians will be too happy about that, your highness,” Fandral offers.

There’s a moment’s pause during which Loki has to deal with Thor’s teeth biting into their skin. They inhale quickly, swallowing down that which Thor is failing at hiding.

“Oh when are they ever happy with anything we do?” Loki drawls.

“Hogun,” Thor says, attempting to gather his last two brain cells.

Loki tips their head to the side so they can look properly at Thor.

“Yes, my liege?” Hogun says.

“Find whoever trespassed and...take care of them,” Thor says. “No use igniting a turf war over one bad actor.”

“How do you know it’s one bad actor?” Loki asks.

“The Vanir aren’t stupid,” Thor grunts. “They have more weapons, but Alfheim has more...recruits. Freyr wouldn’t start something like this. Now. Outnumbered.”

“Who is to say which is more important, in this economy?” Loki says. They look bored of this and wave a hand at Hogun, dismissing him to go do what Thor has said.

“Yes, your highness,” Hogun says and bows his head slightly to Thor and Loki.

“I’m bored,” Loki says as soon as he and Fandral have finished. They turn toward Thor and resume their stroking, this time with the added danger of nails. “Pay attention to me.”

“I am paying attention to you,” Thor says, turning his gaze toward Loki. “Can you not _feel_ the attention I am paying?”

That makes Loki laugh, a fond and pleased sort of giggle. They lean forward and press a kiss to Thor’s mouth. They linger.

“Jesus Christ,” a familiar voice says, loudly.

Loki only breaks away slightly.

“Is that who I think it is?” they say out loud. “Only it couldn’t be, because I asked him to come _ages_ ago.”

“Spare me, your _highness_ ,” Bucky says. “I didn’t realize I was on a clock.”

“Bucky,” Thor says, with a little shock. He straightens on the throne immediately, which forces Loki to make a little disgruntled sound. He ignores this and looks over Loki’s shoulder, scanning the other man quickly, trying to make sure he—

Bucky looks bruised and tired, but his expression is calculating, his eyes narrow, as though trying to assess something.

“Thor,” Bucky says, carefully. “It’s good to...have you back. It seems like a _reality_ ago I last saw you.”

Pointed words, but Thor is flooded with relief. He doesn’t know what he would have done if this was some strange alternate reality Bucky Barnes and he needed to find the real one out there somewhere. He wouldn’t have known where to start.

“It does seem that way,” Thor says. “Last I saw, you were looking rather… _blue_.”

Bucky’s own relief is almost immediate. His shoulders, which had been hitched up near his ears, lower just slightly. He lets out a breath.

“What are you two talking about?” Loki says.

“Nothing,” Thor says quickly.

He frowns, looking at the state of Bucky. His friend’s dark jeans are ripped at the knees and his leather jacket has a slash along the arm. His long, pulled back hair seems greasier than usual, matted with sweat and some blood crusted along the hairline. There’s a gash along his jaw and his throat seems bruised purple. There’s blood and mud on his thick-soled leather boots. His eyeliner is smudged and there’s a drop of red at the corner of his mouth. The only part of him that seems pristine is a single silver cross earring he wears on his left lobe.

He looks terrible.

“What happened to you?” Thor asks quietly.

Bucky seems to breathe a moment before dragging the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Steve,” he says. “Cornered me in an alley. Put a gun to my head.”

Thor’s brows knit together.

“Steve Rogers?” he asks. “He—why would he do that?”

“Shot the gun, actually,” Bucky says. He looks at the back of his wrist and wipes it on his filthy shirt. “Just missed. Then he tried to stab me with a knife a few times.”

“I don’t understand,” Thor says, confused.

“What is there to understand?” Loki says. They withdraw their hand from Thor’s pants, presumably bored that Thor’s been sufficiently distracted from his dick. “You’re a vampire and he is a vampire hunter. You exist and therefore he must kill you. Is that difficult? I thought it was rather obvious myself.”

“What?” Bucky inhales sharply at the same time Thor blinks and says, “What?”

“Was he supposed to greet you with a sweet kiss instead?” Loki asks. “If I were to cross paths with one of those odious Hunters, I would not think twice before digging my teeth in.”

“ _What?_ ” Bucky says louder at the same time Thor says, “ _Hunters?_ ”

“Honestly, what is the matter with you two?” Loki snaps. “Do you have a sudden case of selective amnesia or is it simply stupidity?”

Thor and Bucky exchange a look.

“Rogers has been a pain in our throats for months now. One day he wasn’t there and then the next he was, usually with that gun of his pointed at James’s head.”

Loki tilts his head.

“What _did_ you do?”

Bucky rubs at his eyes.

“Nothing!” he says. “I think.”

Loki hums, then says, “Have you considered just fucking him?”

“What?” Bucky’s head snaps up.

“Oh I don’t know, maybe if you fucked him he would stop wasting his time prowling around the city, trying to kill us,” Loki says. They adjust their blouse. “Or, I don’t know, he could fuck you. Perhaps you could fuck each other. Take turns. I don’t judge, of course. Get it out of your systems.”

Thor puts a firm hand to Loki’s chest and leans forward.

“Down, kitten,” he says.

“What?” Loki says and shrugs. “Then kill him. That’s better for us anyway.”

Bucky lets out a strangled sound of frustration.

“That’s not what I—maybe I can talk to him,” Bucky says. “Maybe he’d listen if I—”

“We have a vampire turf war brewing and a vampire hunter hell bent on killing all of us, pet,” Loki says. “I think you’re well past the point of _talking_. What is this? Do you have a crush?”

“Did you turn Sam?” Bucky snaps at Loki.

A moment of silence. Loki’s mouth curves down.

“Excuse me?”

“Sam Wilson,” Bucky says slowly. “Did you turn him? And leave him for dead?”

“I don’t leave my creations lying around, James,” Loki says. They lose the affected tone in their voice for something clearer. It’s cold. A warning. “I’m not sloppy.”

Bucky lets out a frustrated breath.

“Then someone else, then,” Bucky says. “Steve said—”

“I’m sure the Hunter said many things to you,” Loki says. “That is what they do, no matter the actual truth. Will you let him into your head and betray us?”

“He’s my—” Bucky starts and Thor gives him a warning look and he hastily swallows. “I knew him.”

“I do not care,” Loki snaps. They straighten in Thor’s lap, no longer lazy and carefree. “We are your Clan, James. We are your family. Do you know what happens to vampires without family?”

Thor does, somehow. A clanless vampire eventually turns feral. There’s no reason left to them, no consciousness. The only good feral vampire is a dead one.

Bucky clenches his jaw, but nods.

“It would serve you well not to forget that. Or question it.”

Thor can feel Loki tense, the muscles in their back locked and stiff. He can see it in Bucky too, the tension rising, the stubborn anger in his eyes. It’s always like this, between creators and their children; a bond that is so close to blood it’s nearly unbreakable. That’s not always a good thing. Sometimes blood is more infuriating than water.

Thor runs a hand down Loki’s back and leans forward to press a kiss to their neck.

“Bucky knows,” Thor says. “Don’t you, Bucky? He wouldn’t betray us. Not for some...Hunter.”

Bucky’s expression is conflicted, but thank the Norns he must have enough self preservation to not provoke Loki. Thor doesn’t know that he could control them if he did.

“I wouldn’t,” Bucky says finally. “Not for our enemy.”

“Not for anyone,” Thor says, raising an eyebrow.

“Not for anyone,” Bucky relents.

Loki says nothing. The tension ripples through the air, a pressure so delicate it would take one wrong word to snap.

“It will be morning soon,” Thor murmurs. He presses his palm to Loki’s belly, feeling the cold skin under his fingertips. “Let’s go back to the coffin, love. I haven’t had you in what feels like an eternity.”

Loki, coiled tight, jaw locked, slowly softens. Inch by inch, they relent.

“Fine,” Loki says. “Get him out of my sight.”

Thor holds onto Loki and nods at Bucky. Bucky’s fingers are curled into fists. He’s wound so tight, he’s liable to break before he snaps.

“Bucky,” Thor says. “No Man’s Land.”

Bucky gives him a questioning look.

“The diner,” Thor says. “Tomorrow at 11 pm. Meet me there.”

Bucky takes a slow breath and nods. He sways on his feet a moment before Heimdall comes up behind him, a large hand on his shoulder.

The two murmur as Heimdall leads him away. Thor watches him go, his stomach knitting tight.

“I don’t like it when he gets mouthy with me,” Loki says, distracting Thor’s attention back to them.

Thor blinks down at them. All at once, Loki’s cold, rigid demeanor changes and they’re all languid lines and an impish smile again. A cat, Thor thinks, as ever.

“You chose him _because_ he got mouthy with you,” Thor says.

“Yes, well, it’s boring when they’re not,” Loki pouts.

Thor chuckles and sighs in relief, nosing his way down the length of Loki’s jaw. He scratches them near the back, his beard drawing across clean-shaven skin.

“ _Thor_ ,” Loki whines and Thor chuckles again and presses a kiss to the back of their jaw.

“Now, you started something earlier,” Thor says, his voice rumbling into Loki’s throat. “That you didn’t quite finish.”

“I tried,” Loki says, with a sullen look. “I tried _so_ hard.”

Thor grins and grabs Loki by their right hip.

“You’re going to try until you get it right,” Thor says, eye gleaming. “Isn’t that right?”

Loki’s breathing comes out a little shallower than before. They nod.

“And then...you’ll fuck my brains out?” they ask.

Thor lets one corner of his mouth quirk up.

“We’ll see,” he says. He turns toward the room. “You’re all dismissed.”

The room disperses with some sudden shifting and low-grade rumbling. Ignoring them all, Thor lifts Loki up, one arm behind their back, Loki’s legs wrapped around his waist.

He walks them across the throne room, down the hallway, and straight to their coffin.

*

It really is called No Man’s Land Diner, Bucky thinks, staring at the flickering neon sign. It’s 9 pm, two full hours before Thor had asked to meet, but Bucky’s antsy and vampires need more than blood to survive. He has nothing of substance to do anyway. He had passed out in his coffin and slept the entire day, shuddering awake an hour after the sun had set. He feels marginally more well-rested, if not exactly _better_. Anyway, he figures he can sit at a booth with a cup of coffee and order a tuna melt with fries and wait out the time, glancing over his shoulders with—in his opinion—understandable paranoia all the while.

Is it paranoia if you _know_ there’s someone trying to kill you?

Bucky adjusts his leather gloves, shakes his head, and walks in through the glass doors.

The diner looks straight out of a 60s fever dream, with a black-and-white checkered, linoleum floor, red, vinyl booths, and neon signs flickering along the wall. There’s one long counter with a dozen plastic, also red seated stools drilled into the ground, and a lady with an apron and a notepad taking orders from behind it.

It could be any of a dozen diners he vaguely remembers eating at during the 60s or even 70s, just stopping in for a hamburger and a shake with his handlers before taking his shotgun out and shooting some mark through the fucking head. It was nice of his handlers, in retrospect, to give him a solid meal. That was before HYDRA went to the fucking dogs and their standards became less treat-the-Asset-like-an-Asset and more treat-the-Asset-like-a-fucking-trash-receptacle.

He doesn’t think he’ll be getting a burger or fries this time. Too many confusing memories.

Bucky takes a stool near the corner, where he can surveil the entire diner and still order a tuna melt with fries and a root beer float, as a treat. He vaguely wishes he had a hat to tilt forward over his eyes, as though that’s ever been a reasonable disguise.

He’s nursing a cup of hot, black coffee and waiting for his meal while dicking around on his phone, playing Tetris—vampire Bucky is still apparently using a flip phone, what the fuck—when a long shadow falls over him. Bucky tenses, his senses sharpening a beat too late, and he looks up sharply to see—

“Steve,” he says.

He blinks in confusion.

“Mind if I sit here?” Steve asks.

That doesn’t help the confusion.

Bucky looks at him closely—Steve stands tall in combat boots, his shoulders squared off under a long, black trench coat that hits below his knees. The collar is turned up, as though protecting him against the wind. His blond hair is combed over, his eyes a clear familiar blue above dark circles just smudged purple. Bucky’s sure he’s armed somewhere under there, but he seems to be in no mood to do any harm, at least not now. He looks tired.

“You gonna shoot me if I say no?” Bucky asks.

Steve offers him a thin smile, if not exactly apologetic.

“No Man’s Land,” Steve says. “Either of us shoot in here and we’ll go through hell getting driven off the island.”

“Aww, I’m sure—” Bucky squints at the woman’s name tag, “—Ms. Melinda May wouldn’t run us out of town.”

The woman behind the counter jerks her head toward a little stand underneath the order window. There’s a sawed off shotgun.

“Try me,” she says and Bucky puts both of his hands up in surrender.

Steve shakes his head and takes the seat.

“I didn’t say yes,” Bucky points out.

“We’ve done this before,” Steve says. “You always say yes.”

  
**art:** Vampire Bucky and Vampire Hunter Steve, sharing fries at No Man's Land diner; **art by:** nalonzooo

Bucky can’t argue with that. What a strange fucking truce. Ms. May brings him his plate of food and slides over a root beer float.

“What can I get you?” she asks Steve.

Steve looks at Bucky’s plate.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” he says. “Skip the blood.”

“We don’t serve that in here,” Melinda May says and jots it down. She turns and heads down the counter toward two more customers who have just come in.

“Very funny,” Bucky says, turning toward Steve. “He’s got jokes, folks.”

“I’m very funny, once you get to know me,” Steve says.

“Maybe I’d get to know you if you didn’t try to kill me every time you saw me,” Bucky says. He picks up a fry and dips it in a glob of ketchup.

“Fair enough,” Steve says. “In my defense, you try to kill me every time you see me too.”

“Maybe I just think you’re cute,” Bucky says, pointing the fry at him. “You ever thought of that, killer?”

Steve snorts.

“Trying to suck my blood’s the same as pulling pigtails now?”

“Grow your hair longer and I won’t have to revert to more extreme means,” Bucky says, grinning. He swallows the fry and it satisfies something in him—not the bloodlust, but the part of him that craves salty and crispy and fried. Even vampires can enjoy the American dream of clogged arteries and deep fried everything.

“You don’t like my hair?” Steve asks and runs a hand through it, as though contemplating.

“If you’re going to keep flirting with me, it’s going to make the killing thing way harder,” Bucky says. He pushes his plate toward Steve. “Fries?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Steve says and picks one up.

Bucky picks up his tuna melt and starts to eat.

After a moment Steve says, “I’m not flirting with you.”

It’s Bucky’s turn to snort. It’s made more difficult with a mouth full of tuna.

“I’m not,” Steve insists. Then he frowns. “At least, I don’t think I am.”

Bucky swallows and reaches for his root beer float.

“That would be bad for your brand,” Bucky says. Steve raises an eyebrow. “Falling for a vampire. Given your current profession.”

“That’s my night job. I’m actually an actuary,” Steve says. It’s with a straight face, but Bucky hasn’t known Steve his entire fucking life to not know when he’s fucking with him.

“Like hell you are, you lying fuck,” Bucky says, loudly. “Do you even know what an actuary is?”

“No,” Steve admits and starts to laugh. Bucky rolls his eyes and Steve rubs a hand down his face. “I don’t get it.”

“Get what?” Bucky slurps some of his float.

“You,” Steve says. “This. Us? I don’t know. You’re my mortal enemy.”

Bucky shrugs.

“I hate you,” Steve says. “I hate what you are. I hate what you stand for. I hate the fucking group of people you associate with. I hate—”

“Now list something nice,” Bucky interrupts.

“What?”

Bucky takes a fry and dips it in ketchup and waves it around a little.

“Sounds to me like you’re a little fixated on everything about me you hate and you haven’t said a thing about me you like,” he says. “So try that. I bet it’ll help.”

“I’m serious, Barnes—”

“Bucky,” Bucky says. “If we’re going to keep doing this dance, at least call me by my first name.”

Steve looks frustrated. He runs a hand through his hair again.

“Fine, Bucky,” he says. “This isn’t right. We get out of here and I will put my pistol to your head and blow your fucking brains out.”

“Gee, thanks,” Bucky says. “See if I share my fries with you again.”

“I’m serious,” Steve says again and in his defense, he sounds it. “I know who I am and I know what you are. I have a duty and I’m not going to give that up, just because—”

He falters.

“Because what, Steve?” Bucky asks.

Steve makes a little choking noise and shakes his head. Bucky waits for him to find his words, but whatever he’s struggling with is apparently too much to string together a full sentence. Or maybe he’s just being stubborn, the relentless asshole.

Bucky sighs.

“Why’s it your duty?” he asks.

Steve looks back up.

“What?”

“You said it’s your duty,” Bucky says. “Why? I mean I know vampires aren’t like—morally on the up and up, but we can’t help our cravings any more than you can help...needing water. Or whatever. So what’s up with this vendetta? Someone kill your cat or something?”

Steve stiffens. It’s so abrupt and it’s so rigid that Bucky stares at him in confusion.

“Steve—?”

It takes a minute of awkward tension. Steve turns toward the counter as Ms. May slides him his plate of food.

“Mother,” he says, finally.

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to freeze.

“What?”

“My mother,” Steve says. “Someone killed my mother.”

“Fuck,” Bucky says in horror. His mind flips through a hundred different pictures, like a clicking video reel of Sarah Rogers and her punkass son, or what Bucky thinks he remembers of her at any rate.

“I don’t know who,” Steve says. “But it was vampires. I saw the marks. I saw her body. Drained of blood.”

Bucky feels sick to his stomach. He shoves his plate away.

“She’d turned blue,” he says, quietly. “From tip to tip. She was coming back from a night shift.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, swallowing.

“I was twenty-one years old,” Steve says, with a shrug too carefully casual to be convincing. “Just moved back home from college. She had just gotten promoted at the hospital. Called me ten minutes before, just to let me know she was on her way.”

Bucky’s shaking now. Steve is too.

“Last words to me were, I’ll pick up ice cream,” Steve says quietly. “And I love you.”

Bucky’s fingers curl into his palm, the soft leather folding between his fingers.

“They made me identify the body,” Steve says with a bitter laugh. When he turns his face toward Bucky, it’s breathtakingly sad. “So you tell me what you would do, Bucky. You tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

Bucky shakes his head. He doesn’t know. His chest aches and it hurts to breathe and he doesn’t know.

“Who was it?” Bucky asks, voice a whisper. “The vampires who—”

“I don’t know,” Steve says. “Does it matter?”

It does, but it doesn’t. Accountability is one thing and culpability is another. Maybe not every vampire murdered Sarah Rogers, but every vampire has murdered someone who is Sarah Rogers to someone else. So does it matter, really, if they’re the ones who murdered this specific person, this specific time? They all have blood on their hands. Bucky’s nails seem crusted with it.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says quietly. “I know that doesn’t help, but. I’m sorry, Steve.”

Steve lets out a breath like—a shudder. Something from deep in his chest, air forced out of his lungs.

“It shouldn’t,” Steve says. “But it does. Strangely. Somehow.”

Bucky nods and reaches for his float. It’s just something to do. He’s not hungry anymore. Well, at least not for food.

“We’ve been going around each other for months, Bucky,” Steve says after a quiet pause. “What does that mean?”

“You want to kill me and I want to drink from you,” Bucky says, honestly. “Guess that doesn’t leave us in a great place.”

Steve laughs, low and hurt. He groans and scrubs his hands down his face.

“This is so fucked up.”

“Don’t suppose you’d let me drink from you and not murder me in return?” Bucky tries.

Steve gives him a sad kind of smile, just a little tilt up at the corners of his mouth. He shakes his head.

Bucky sighs and takes a sip of his float. After a moment, he says, “Killing all of us won’t bring her back.”

“I know that,” Steve says. “But it sure as hell might make me feel better.”

Bucky gives him a half smile. He picks up a fry.

“Has it, you fucking punk?”

Steve manages a wry smile of his own. He doesn’t look away from Bucky.

“Little bit,” he says.

“Well I can’t help you with that,” Bucky says. “I am what I am and you are what you are. So I guess maybe we’re fucked.”

Steve nods. His shoulders square up, the way he always gets when he’s resigned to something noble and stupid.

Jesus fucking Christ, how is he always so fucking noble and stupid?

“Steve,” Bucky says.

“Hm?”

“You got the one life,” Bucky says. “Do whatever you want. If you want revenge, get revenge. If you want to fuck a vampire, fuck a vampire.”

Steve turns pink, immediately. He flushes, coloring from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. God, he’s cute.

“I’m not—” he splutters. “I don’t—!”

“If you want to sit next to a vampire at a diner in neutral territory and eat a fucking tuna melt and fries and just talk, then do that,” Bucky says, softly. He doesn’t look away, even when Steve ducks his head, embarrassed. “You deserve whatever it is you want. So what do you want?”

Steve shakes his head. He looks embarrassed at first, but then he fortifies himself.

When he looks back up at Bucky, it’s with an unapologetic smile.

“I want to sit next to a vampire at a diner in neutral territory and eat a fucking tuna melt and fries and just talk,” he says. “If he’ll have me.”

His eyes flicker down to Bucky’s mouth for a moment and then moves back up. Bucky feels his stomach twist, something hot and indescribable curled in the pit of it.

“Sure, Steve,” Bucky says, swallowing. “I’ll have you.”

Steve nods and his shoulders lower—inch by inch. He smiles as he reaches for his sandwich and it occurs to Bucky that maybe all he had been waiting for was permission—just the words, from one person, _what do you want?_ and _it’s your life, do whatever you want with it._

It’s funny advice to give to Steve, all things considered.

Bucky wonders what it would be like, to be asked that question in return.

He wonders what his answer would be.

_What do you want, Bucky Barnes?_

“So do your fangs retract?” Steve asks, mouth full of fries. “Like...a spring?”

Bucky rolls his eyes so aggressively, they nearly fall out of his head.

“Yeah,” he snorts. “It’s like one of those clicky pens. I can click my fangs away when I’m done drinking.”

Steve rolls his eyes in return, but it’s clear he’s amused. He leans toward Bucky and steals some more fries.

“Hey, asshole!” Bucky gripes, smacking at Steve’s hand, but Steve just grins and stuffs them into his mouth.

He’s unbearably cute. Leave it to Bucky to develop feelings for someone who keeps threatening to kill him.

Steve swallows his fries and starts to ask more questions—some genuine, some outright stupid.

Bucky shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and snarks back. The two of them laugh and tease, grinning and jostling one another, natural and easy, even when they’re on opposing sides.

  
They talk until their root beers are finished and their sandwiches gone, snacking on lukewarm fries and two slices of key lime pie a la mode that they order and duly demolish.

In this manner, two hours goes by impossibly fast and when Steve gets up to leave, it’s with the terribly sad knowledge that when they meet again, it will once more be as enemies.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The diner scene was one of my absolute favorite to write. Hope you enjoyed it too!! ♥


	10. Chapter Ten. [ third oddity: vampires ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Steve,” he says again, trying. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. He doesn’t know if Steve is going to shoot him again, but at this point, Steve will either find his mark or Bucky will— “Run. _Please._ ”
> 
> Steve raises his gun and hesitates. The muzzle pointed in between Bucky’s eyes, Steve’s finger on the trigger, and he hesitates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH, FRIENDS ♥ 
> 
> I hope this chapter finds you vicious, bloodthirsty, and dangerously horny for your sworn enemy.
> 
>  **cw:** some violence, bloodletting

Bucky orders another coffee and stares at the swirl of the two small cups of French vanilla creamer he’s dumped inside with three packets of sugar. He takes his spoon and chases the cream around, the metal clanging on the sides of the ceramic mug each time he makes a circle. He only looks up when he hears a relieved exhale and a groan as someone eases himself onto the stool next to him.

“Sorry I’m late,” Thor says. “Loki was feeling in particular need of attention.”

Bucky makes a face and Thor laughs.

“Not like that,” he says. “Well, this time. They needed to try on every outfit in their wardrobe and be complimented on each piece before I was allowed to leave.”

“Are they...always this way?” Bucky asks.

Thor chuckles.

“I think maybe if I had paid this much attention to them in our own reality, they would not have wanted to stab me so much,” he says. He gestures at Bucky’s mug. “Is that coffee?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “You hungry?”

Thor rubs a hand through his scruffy beard, considering.

“I think I’m rather full from earlier,” he says. “But I would like some coffee.”

Bucky signals to Ms. May, who nods and brings over another ceramic mug and pours Thor a cup.

“Your highness,” she says, with a respectful nod. “It’s been a while.”

Thor doesn’t miss a beat. He smiles at her and gratefully accepts the coffee. “Oh, you know. Always something happening among the undead. Surprisingly needy creatures. They keep me busy.”

Ms. May gives Thor a half-smile. “I bet. Can I get you anything else?”

“No, this is fine. Thank you.” Thor gives her one of those bright, glowing smiles that Bucky understands could help him negotiate his way out of a hostage situation.

Bucky lifts his mug to take a mouthful of his own coffee and finds Thor’s single eye turned toward him.

“Well, you’re looking, rather—” Thor starts and pauses.

Bucky gives him a dead stare.

“—worse for the wear,” Thor says, with a hopeful smile, like understating how much of a terrible shit Bucky currently looks will help lift his spirits.

Bucky sighs and tiredly rubs a hand down his face.

“This...reality isn’t sitting well with me,” he says.

“Ah yes,” Thor says, his single eye on Bucky. “Loki mentioned you hadn’t been drinking.”

Bucky glares up at the Norse God-Vampire King.

“I’m sorry that the thought of human blood and murder is giving me indigestion.”

“How can something you refuse to partake in give you indigestion?” Thor asks, somewhat cheerfully. He picks up his mug and it pains Bucky to see how much larger his hands are than the slim handle. Jesus.

“We’re not _actually_ vampires, Thor,” Bucky says. “How are you going to drain a man here and then go off to—wherever these fucking blue shards take us next? Knowing you murdered them in this world? That you enjoyed...the taste of blood?”

“Well presumably we will not be vampires wherever we go next and I will no longer have to drink blood there,” Thor says. His expression is mild, as though this is a perfectly reasonable response. “And anyway, you are wrong. We are not _usually_ vampires, but we are them here.”

“What difference does that make?” Bucky mutters into his coffee.

Thor shifts his large body.

“The difference is that this is what we need to survive here. Whatever is happening, we have been given no say. So until we end up back where we started, we will simply have to play by the rules of whatever reality—or universe we’re in.”

Thor looks so confident in his answer—so assured that there’s no moral ambiguity here—or, at least, that any moral ambiguity is justified—that Bucky almost believes it too. It would be so easy to leave it like that—do the thing you need to do in the place you’re temporarily in and then leave, no consequences attached.

But then he remembers Steve’s wide, terrified eyes. He imagines Sarah Rogers’s body, cold and dead on the ground; murdered for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, walking home just when a vampire wanted a drink. Or needed one. The difference is trivial when the end result is the same.

“Is that what this is?” Bucky asks. “Another universe? Where the fuck are we, Thor?”

Thor drinks half of his piping hot cup of coffee before answering.

“I do not know,” he says. “Not for certain. I have a few guesses, but admittedly I did not pay as close attention during my tutorials as I should have and it has been some...half a dozen centuries since my last. Loki really is better suited to this kind of thing.”

“Uh huh, and does your Queen have any idea about interdimensional—universe hopping, Thor?” Bucky asks dryly.

“Oh I’m sure they would have some ideas, none of which would be particularly helpful to us,” Thor says, with a loose smile. “No, the other Loki.” A pause. “My Loki, I mean.”

Bucky takes a breath and nods.

“The Loki from 2012,” he says. He sighs and runs a hand through his slicked back hair. “This thing that’s happening to us...I think it’s because of him. And because of Steve. Something weird was happening back home. Everyone was forgetting them, except for us. And then we end up here? That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Yes, that is also what I’ve been thinking,” Thor says. He reaches up to adjust his eyepatch and Bucky can see, then, that this is wearing on him as well. Thor might be more adaptable to reality tumbling than Bucky—probably because aliens probably go through this kind of thing more than humans do—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t having its effects on him too. He’s also out of place here—out of time, out of world, out of his own life, even if his own life hadn’t gone the way he had expected it to.

“Steve went to put all of the Infinity Stones back,” Bucky says, quietly. He runs a finger over the lip of his mug. “I think one of them...they got from 2012, right?”

“Aye,” Thor says. “The Tesseract. Powered by the Space Stone.”

“What did that one do?” Bucky asks, looking back at Thor. “Would it have—I don’t know, something with different realities?”

Thor is quiet for a moment, thinking. He looks down at his black coffee and then lifts the mug to finish it. When it’s done, he nods.

“The Space Stone’s purpose is...intertwined with the fabric of space. Space is intertwined with time. I believe the Tesseract’s power allowed those who wielded it to travel between dimensions. Different parts of the known universe,” Thor says.

Bucky sucks in a breath.

“And...the unknown universe?”

Thor raises his eyebrows, looking equal parts thoughtful and amused.

“It would appear that way, wouldn’t it?” he chuckles.

“Jesus. This is some kind of fucked up—I don’t know, multiverse shit,” Bucky says. He runs a hand over his hair again. “I should’ve read more H.G. Wells when I had the chance.”

“Who is that?” Thor asks. “Does he know Dr. Erik Selvig? Now there is a man who could be of use.”

“No, he’s—” Bucky starts and shakes his head. “Nevermind. Thor, what are we going to do?”

Thor looks eagerly toward Ms. May again, seemingly hoping for a refill, but she’s busy with another customer and he deflates a little.

“We will have to find another piece of the...glass. The blue shard. Do you have the others?”

Bucky nods and pats his pocket, where the silver bag from Jotunheim is nestled, along with the two shards that they’ve collected so far.

“Every time we find a new one, we are taken to a new—multiverse, did you call it?” Thor says. He runs a hand over his beard. “That must mean something then. Perhaps these pieces act like the Space Stone. Or have been infected by it.”

That makes something itch at the back of his mind. The Space Stone, responsible for interdimensional travel, zapping people in and out of time and space, across galaxies and dimensions. Glowing blue, like Steve’s eyes. Blue like the ocean, where they had found the Tesseract, where it had fallen after it had eaten through Schmidt’s quinjet. Blue pieces of interdimensional glass. Shards as blue as—

Oh.

_Oh._

“Maybe it _is_ the Space Stone,” Bucky says slowly.

“What?”

Bucky’s brain starts to grind—piecing together shapes of a puzzle he hadn’t realized they had been in the middle of solving—and quickly he withdraws the silver bag. He pulls open the tie and they both lean together to look inside. Bucky inhales quickly.

The shards inside are large, jagged pieces, translucent as glass, or crystal—and tinged a bright, glowing blue.

“If you put multiple pieces together,” Bucky says slowly. “Do you think they would form a—”

“Cube,” Thor says, sounding awed. “Mimir’s Beard.”

The two of them stare, mouths askew and eyes widened. The bag seems to thrum, as though barely holding the incidental reverberations of some form of power. Inside, the shards seem to glimmer at them.

“It’s the Tesseract,” Bucky says. “If you put the pieces together, they form the Tesseract.”

“Norns,” Thor says and then, suddenly, he groans. “They _broke_ it.”

Bucky, startled, looks from the shards back at Thor. It takes him a second to process what he’s said, but then he realizes what Thor means and—holy shit, he’s right.

They keep falling from universe to universe and in each dimension—in each reality—they are someone new, some _thing_ new. They are versions of Bucky and Thor that they never have been before, like a Rubik’s Cube of what ifs—what if Bucky had never been a Howling Commando or a soldier at all, what if Loki hadn’t been stolen and Thor had been forced into an arranged marriage with him instead, what if they were bloodthirsty vampires and Steve was their mortal enemy? They twist and slot the different sides of the interdimensional Rubik’s Cube together and through it all, through every single iteration, there is one thing that remains the same: where he and Thor go, Steve and Loki are already there.

They keep revolving around them, sometimes in similar configurations and sometimes in different ones, but each time the core of the reality doesn’t change. Where Steve and Loki are, Thor and Bucky show up, and when they find another shard, they’re pitched forward to another dimension, to another Steve and Loki.

Bucky doesn’t know what those two did, exactly, but, staring at the shards and thinking about what they’ve been through so far, this is the only explanation that makes sense.

That Steve went back to 2012 to put the Space Stone back. That Loki had somehow met him there. That something had happened between them and in the ensuing tussle, the two idiots had broken the fucking Tesseract.

*

The headache returns over the next few days, a dull, distant throb at first and then growing louder and sharper until it’s the kind of migraine that bowls him over, lights shredding his brain and the faintest noise sending him reeling against the closest surface.

It’s stupid of him, is the fucking thing.

Not just ignoring his thirst, but trying to power through it, thinking he can just grit his fangs and fucking bear it, like he’s Steve fucking Rogers being told to do one thing when all he wants is to do the opposite. It’s stupid, because Bucky has always prided himself on being more rational than Steve, except the idiot had gotten himself zapped into the multiverse and apparently he’d taken Bucky’s brain cells with him.

It would have been one thing if he had stayed in his room at the back of the den, digging his nails into his palms or skinning his knuckles punching the brick walls to try and ward away the hunger, but instead, he had lost his fucking mind and what was left of his rational thinking and left. Not just left his room, but left the _den_ and not that any of the other vampires are his babysitter, but not a single one of them, seeing what a fucking state he was in, had thought to stop him.

So he’s somewhere in the city, weaving in between darkened streets under red-tinted lights, fingers clutched at his own throat and head cleaving in two and the problem—the reason that he’s such a _fucking_ idiot—is that eventually, something’s gotta give.

In this case, a drunk man stumbles across his path.

In this case, all that’s left to give is Bucky’s self control.

The man stumbles along the barely lit street, an open bottle in his hand, crushing into whatever building he’s closest to on occasion and swaying back out into the sidewalk a moment later.

Bucky doesn’t even realize that what he’s doing is stalking until the man turns a corner and Bucky, head ringing, fangs aching, follows.

The man sings something—warbles it, really, a drunken mishmash of real words and whatever he’s slurring. He is out of his mind drunk. Bucky can smell the stink of liquor from a dozen paces behind him.

The air between them is thick, humid and smelling of metal and the slow pulse of the man’s heart. Bucky can hear it in his ears clearly, a _thud-thud-thud_ , rhythmic and soothing, like a metronome. He can’t see the pulse in the man’s neck, but he knows that he would be able to, if it weren’t hidden under a collar, or if the light was a little brighter along this side of the street.

Bucky licks his lips and tries to control himself. He closes his eyes and slows his breathing—tries not to smell the scent of blood in the air. It’s hard when he’s this thirsty, but still doable so long as the blood stays _inside_ the ma—

The man suddenly stumbles over his own two feet. He crashes down onto the sidewalk, stopping himself with his own two hands.

“Whoops,” he giggles to himself.

He picks his hands up and turns them over. It’s dim under the streetlight, but he can see that he’s skinned his palms.

“Oh,” the man says.

There’s a drop of blood in the center of his hand.

  
Bucky doesn’t remember what happens next. His eyes snap open and his blood starts to boil. The scent in the air clarifies, sharpening to a point. There’s blood in his nose, in his mouth, blood sinking through the top layer of his skin.

Bucky’s eyes darken, a deep, blood red, and his brain whites out.

The man doesn’t get to scream before he’s hurled into the alleyway next to him and slammed against the brick.

  
“ _Barnes_ ,” a voice shouts and Bucky can’t think, he can’t feel, he hisses as his head snaps back and there’s the sound of a resounding gunshot blasting through the air.

The bullet bites into the side of the building and Bucky lifts his mouth, blood dribbling down his chin. He hisses again and Steve levels the pistol at his head and shoots.

Bucky drops the man and wheels out of the way, skidding further into the alleyway as Steve crouches next to the prone body, cursing and checking his pulse.

Bucky’s head is still pounding, his vessels contracting, desperate, nearly feral, with the need for more food. He had barely gotten a mouthful off, which means the man’s still alive, with blood leaking from his neck while Bucky’s still viciously hungry.

“Steve,” Bucky rasps. His brain feels heavy, his thoughts nearly impenetrable through the wall of bloodlust, but he manages to grapple a single moment of clarity. “I can’t—control—”

Steve curses some more and hauls the guy up.

“Are you all right?”

The man groans in pain, but seems otherwise conscious.

“Get out of here,” Steve says and shoves him toward the mouth of the alley. “ _Go_!”

The man doesn’t need to be told twice. He bolts.

Bucky struggles up to his feet, one palm scraping against the bricks next to him. He feels so woozy, he might throw up.

“Steve,” he says again, trying. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. He doesn’t know if Steve is going to shoot him again, but at this point, Steve will either find his mark or Bucky will— “Run. _Please._ ”

Steve raises his gun and hesitates. The muzzle pointed in between Bucky’s eyes, Steve’s finger on the trigger, and he hesitates.

“Please,” Bucky says again. Begging. “Can’t. Control.”

Bucky’s sweating, his limbs shaking from need. He lifts the back of his hand to his mouth and wipes it, smearing blood across his lips. He licks at it, desperate for every drop, making a little noise of pain.

He closes his eyes. His heart is racing, his ears ringing. If Steve is going to shoot him, he should just fucking do it. It’s better him than someone else. And at least then this can be over. The ways in which he hurts, the things he cannot accept or reconcile—they can be at an end.

He waits for a shot that never comes.

Bucky hears a soft curse and then he opens his eyes to see Steve stuffing his pistol into his coat and then he’s across the alleyway, slamming Bucky into the brick wall behind him. Bucky’s head bounces slightly against the wall and he flops a little, dazed and nearly delirious from pain. Steve has his arm flat against Bucky’s chest, pinning him in place, his other hand pinning Bucky’s wrist against the bricks, his grip iron-tight.

Bucky pants at the closeness, at the smell of Steve’s blood so close to him. H’s dark eyes widen, his throat aching, his fangs baring and he—

“Here,” Steve says roughly.

Bucky’s caught off guard. He inhales quickly, trembling.

“What?”

Steve eases the pressure off of his chest and steps back. He shoves his sleeves up and before Bucky can blink, offers a warm, bare arm.

Bucky’s eyes flicker up to Steve through a haze of lust and confusion.

“Don’t,” Steve says, through grit teeth. “Just take it.”

“Take—”

“What you need,” Steve says. And then, warning, “But not a drop more.”

If he was in better shape, Bucky would question it. He would hesitate before taking what was offered or, at least, feel worse about it. It’s hard to feel guilt now though, when he’s so hungry he’s aching and Steve is looking down at him, offering—freely offering—what Bucky has craved all along—not just blood, but _his_ blood, Steve’s blood in particular, like a fragrance clinging to his throat.

He takes an unsteady step forward and Steve puts a hand on his shoulder, steadying him.

Bucky looks up at Steve for just a moment, Steve framed by the faint moonlight filtering through the dark of the alley, Steve bright in Bucky’s night vision, his eyes uncertain, but his mouth a determined line. He’s close enough to smell, for Bucky to hear his heartbeat racing in his ears.

Steve hesitates and slides his hand to the side of Bucky’s neck, his palm warm against the chilled, dead skin. Bucky’s eyes flutter.

“Drink,” Steve instructs and Bucky’s too weak to need another invitation.

He grasps Steve’s arm with both of his cold hands, turns it over to find the vein running along the inside. Steve has enough time for one, anticipatory inhale, and then Bucky bites down and drinks.

  
**art:** Vampire Bucky, drinking from Vampire Hunter Steve's arm; **art by:** nalonzooo

They stay like that for a little while, Steve’s breaths coming out shallow, little sounds of pain escaping him as Bucky feeds on his blood. It rushes into his mouth quickly and he has to take care not to gorge himself on it, on the blood, which is his sustenance, and on the taste of it—coppery and metallic, but something that he thinks, hazily, is purely Steve, although he couldn’t put words to why. He drinks and licks and when he tries to pull back early, Steve puts pressure on the back of his neck, keeping Bucky down and Bucky, grateful and jittery, drinks some more.

The air grows warmer as he does, the fog in his mind receding inch by inch. Slowly, he can feel his fingers again and his outer extremities, the bloodlust ebbing as his dead heartbeat steadies and then picks up. He can hear it in his ears—the sound of his own and the sound of Steve’s, intermingled, one beating after the other, a rhythm as nervous as it is soothing.

Eventually, it is enough.

Bucky licks the wounds closed and draws back and this time Steve lets him.

They say nothing, although Steve doesn’t let his neck go and Bucky doesn’t move away.

Behind them are the soft sounds of cars along the street and the buzz of neon lights, voices drifting in from farther away. Bucky licks his lips self consciously, as much to try and cover what he’s done as to try to have one last taste of Steve’s blood.

It doesn’t work.

Steve looks down at his mouth and Bucky tenses.

They must be covered, a bloody, conspicuous mess. There’s no pretending there’s something else there or that he had been doing something different. There are only so many ways to explain away a bloodied mouth.

Steve must hate him, he thinks. Every fiber in him must loathe this, loathe Bucky and what he had had to sacrifice to keep Bucky from wreaking greater havoc. First his mother, and now—

Steve moves a hand to Bucky’s mouth, fingertips grazing his wet lips. Bucky inhales shakily, his head growing fuzzy again. Not for the same reason as before.

“Are you all right?” Bucky mutters.

Steve presses his index and middle fingers to Bucky’s lips, as though mesmerized. He sucks in a breath and then brushes his fingertips across, smearing the blood.

“Steve,” Bucky murmurs, his breath hitching.

Steve takes his fingers away and then—looking Bucky in the eyes, his expression cloudy, his own eyes glazed over—offers them to him.

Bucky’s breath comes up short. He can feel his heart beating in his ear drums, his chest tightening, his mind—cloudy, a tangled, confused mess. He can’t think around this and it has nothing to do with the blood on Steve’s fingers or the way he still craves—satiated, hunger abated, but still _craving_.

He waits for Steve to reconsider, but he doesn’t. Instead, Steve watches him closely, his eyes fluttering, taking in quick breaths that are growing shallower. The air between them feels electric, the space between them charged with a magnetism they can’t deny.

It’s too late for Bucky to think too deeply about this—about the shape of Steve’s mouth or the light in his eyes, his palm against Bucky’s throat and how that sparks something in Bucky, low and insatiable.

It’s too late for so many things.

Steve doesn’t move and neither does Bucky.

Bucky keeps eye contact as he tilts his head forward and finally sucks Steve’s fingers into his mouth.

*

“He’s a stubborn fool,” Loki says. “We should let him deal with the consequences of the havoc he wreaks.”

Thor isn’t of the mind to argue, but he had seen the state that Bucky was in earlier this evening and it had given him more than ample reason to worry. Bucky hadn’t had anything to drink since the half-goblet of blood Loki had saved for him three days ago. The physical ramifications of this were clear enough—there were bruises under his eyes and purple splotches across his skin, his breath was beginning to stink, and his gait was uneven.

Bucky was a vampire on the verge of collapse and Thor’s innate knowledge from this reality alerts him to the dangers of that. A vampire that goes too long without drink will eventually snap. And when they do, the line between feral and non-feral becomes less a blur and more a glorified smudge.

Thor quickens his pace and Loki, grumbling all the while, follows.

They scour half the city looking for Bucky and come up empty-handed for their efforts.

“Just let him go on a rampage,” Loki says. “It’s no less than he deserves.”

“Be quiet, Loki,” Thor says, irritated. He knows that Loki cares in their own way—they must be feeling something terrible along their creator bond, weak though it is—but their petulance is distracting and unhelpful when Thor’s stomach is in knots. If Bucky ends up turning fully feral, or _dying_ —Norns, they need to find the next shard and leave this place.

They go down one avenue and find nothing. There’s a dollar slice pizza place and a 24 hour laundromat next to it. Inside, there are a few people, tired and listing in the dead of night, but no sign of any vampire or anyone who has recently been ravaged by a vampire.

“This is a waste of our time,” Loki exclaims, irritated themselves, when they turn the corner from the laundromat and—

“Norns,” Thor says and covers his nose and mouth.

The air wreaks of fresh blood.

“It’s either him or another baby feral,” Loki mutters, although they cover their nose as well.

Grasping Loki by the upper arm, Thor tugs them along as they follow the heavy scented air down the street and turn the corner toward another. There’s a man staggering away, clutching his throat and moving as fast as he can. He’s clearly too drunk to run and it’s a miracle he hasn’t stumbled into traffic and killed himself that way.

“Come on,” Thor growls and they hurry down the street, their shoes clicking against the wet concrete.

The scent increases as they approach an alleyway halfway down the street, the air pungent with it. They turn into the alley, ready for the carnage and—freeze.

Norns.

“So you _are_ fucking the Hunter,” Loki says, loudly. “And all this time we were worried.”

Loki’s voice breaks the tableau of the scene, as though everything frozen comes undone. Steve and Bucky shove away from each other, blood still smeared across Bucky’s mouth, and Steve, pale, with his sleeve shoved up on his right arm.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where the scent is coming from or why Bucky’s fangs are bathed in red.

“You—” Loki says and stops, their eyes widening. “Did you drink from him?”

Steve’s expression flickers, too quickly for Thor to process, but whatever he had been feeling, whatever softness he had held, vanishes, replaced by a hatred so immediate and so visceral that Thor has to take a step back.

“You,” Steve snarls.

“Steve,” Bucky says, a warning in his voice.

The tension in the air suddenly crackles.

“ _You_ killed my mother,” Steve growls, hand to his chest.

“I did no such thing,” Loki says. They tilt their head and grin. “Probably.”

“Steve, _no_ ,” Bucky shouts and lunges for him, but he’s a fraction of a section too late. Steve pulls out his pistol, aims it at Loki, and pulls the trigger.

Loki hisses as Thor shouts and shoves them out of the way. Thor’s instincts overpower him and he lunges for Steve, who’s twisted out of Bucky’s way, the pistol still trying to find his mark.

“Thor!” Bucky shouts, but Thor is trying to grab Steve by the shoulders as Steve fires his gun again. This time it grazes Thor’s side as it blasts into a trash can.

The noise ricochets, loud and violent in the alleyway, and then Loki’s thrown themselves onto Steve’s back, trying to claw at his throat.

Bucky is shouting and attempting to wrest Loki away from Steve and Steve, cursing and panting, fires off more shots, until Loki knees him in the back and he drops his gun, which goes skittering across the ground.

“Thor, _help_!” Bucky yells and Thor is trying his best to pull Steve and Loki apart while Steve is digging for a knife and Loki is trying to sink his fangs into Steve’s artery, when he sees—

Something glowing and blue at Loki’s throat.

Steve shouts as Loki digs his sharp claws into Steve’s biceps and Steve finds his knife and slams it into Loki’s thigh.

Loki shrieks.

Bucky must see the necklace at the same time, because he’s panting as he tries to twist the knife out of Loki’s thigh while shoving Steve off of Loki and he yells, “ _Thor, the rosary_!”

He only has a few seconds before they lose control of this entire situation.

Loki has his fangs bared and Steve twists under him, reaching for another knife to drive into the Queen’s stomach—

“ _Steve, no!_ ” Bucky shouts.

Heart beating in his throat, screaming his voice hoarse, Thor lunges for Loki’s neck, hand outstretched and—

Loki shrieks again as Thor grasps the blue glowing shard and pulls it loose.

The beads of the rosary scatter everywhere.

“ _Bucky!_ ” Thor yells.

A hole claws open the air between them, a purple and blue haze surrounding it.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NIKKI'S HOT BLOODLETTING ART MAKE BRAIN GO MELT
> 
> Also we're halfway!!!!! through this adventure! You might be asking: how could there possibly still be HALF A FIC TO GO, and it's a good question and I have no answers for you. Thank you for joining us anyway--we love hearing from you, thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts with us. ♥
> 
>  **ETA:** In the A/N of the next chapter, I will be explaining a bit better how I envision these AUs function after Bucky and Thor leave for the next reality, but I've gotten quite a few concerned questions about this--so if you're just reading this chapter now, take a look at the comments on this chapter to understand a bit better!


	11. Chapter Eleven. [ fourth oddity: mirrorverse ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn’t have time to readjust his brain. Hell, he doesn’t even have time to swallow his interdimensional nausea. He has about ten seconds before a blond-haired man who looks exactly like the Winter fucking Soldier finds him and puts a bullet between his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a lot of questions about the logistics/functionality of moving through the multiverse last chapter, so for some slight clarification/my interpretation of what happens after they leave a world, see the end notes!
> 
> Anyway, HAPPY MONDAY and welcome to the Fourth Oddity: the Mirrorverse. ;)
> 
>  **cw:** depictions of violence

Steve levels the gun up and shoots.

No, not Steve.

Bucky has all of five seconds to assess the man across from him—long, dirty blond hair, a metal arm to match Bucky’s own—on his right where Bucky’s is on the left—a dark blue leather vest with straps across his chest and a hood pulled over his head, and electric blue eyes above a mask that Bucky can feel smother his own mouth.

“What the fuck,” he gasps.

Then the man lifts an M249 SAW machine gun, aims through the scope, and pulls the trigger again.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bucky shouts as Thor grabs his shoulder and hurls him behind a car. Bucky clips his shoulder on the side and pain lances through the right side of his body as he grits his teeth and ducks behind.

He doesn’t have time to readjust his brain. Hell, he doesn’t even have time to swallow his interdimensional nausea. He has about ten seconds before a blond-haired man who looks exactly like the Winter fucking Soldier finds him and puts a bullet between his eyes.

_Jesus fucking Christ._

His heart pounds in his chest, a loud ringing in his ears from the close call. He hears Thor yell and then grunt in pain on the other side of the car.

Bucky takes the five second gap to assess where he is—the cars, the ramp, the smell of gun smoke, and corroded metal in the air. He doesn’t have time to rifle through the half-missing files in the shitass filing cabinet in his brain. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.

Bucky knows exactly where he is and _when_ he is—he just doesn’t fucking know why.

“Fucking piece of shit stone,” he growls out loud and pats himself down, retrieving two glocks that are on his person. “If I ever see Steve and Loki again I am going to shove some bitchass shards into their fucking throats and shove them into the fucking multiverse and see how much they like it.”

Something blows up somewhere behind him and he winces.

“Loki?” Bucky hears Thor’s voice, loud and shocked in the near distance.

Jesus Christ, he doesn’t want to know.

Taking an unsteady breath, his blood pulsing, Bucky hurls himself out from behind the car, lifts his own guns, takes aim, and starts shooting back.

  
The way Bucky remembers the incident on the highway is simple: he doesn’t.

Not in any particularly meaningful manner, anyway. He knows that he had been sent there along with Brock fucking Rumlow and a host of other HYDRA goons hellbent on licking the soles of Alexander Pierce’s fucking boots, but that’s where everything grows a bit hazy. He remembers jumping on top of a car. He remembers putting his metal fist through the rooftop, crumpling the ceiling like structurally unsound paper, pulling Sitwell up through the newly minted skylight, and flinging him over the bridge, may his soul burn in hell along with every other Nazi piece of shit.

He knows there was a firefight. He thinks maybe he started it.

What he _does_ remember is the smell of gunpowder and words of power rattling around in his head. The distant memory of blue clouds through a dream, like a touch on his elbow he couldn’t quite shake. He doesn’t remember pulling a knife on Steve, but he does, in an out-of-body kind of way. He can’t explain it. He remembers his mask falling off. He remembers turning and he remembers the look on Steve’s face—the way the man on the bridge had suddenly frozen, his feet rooted to the ground, smoke curling behind him, and a slack-jawed expression on his face that made no sense—shocked, maybe horrified, the fight suddenly draining out of his shoulders.

A knife comes at him now and his brain struggles to separate that from this—his half-memories from then and the reality of now—the feel of asphalt under his boots, a dark knife flipped from finger to finger, the slight bend of a wrist, a feint, and the point of a blade biting into the car behind him as Bucky dodges in the bare knick of time. He grabs the familiar—and unfamiliar—metal wrist with his own metal fingers—only to find flesh where there should be the glint of dark vibranium. His brain jars. That’s when he realizes he’s down a metal arm.

 _Oh_ , he thinks and then the Winter Soldier wrenches his wrist out of Bucky’s grasp and Bucky’s forced to duck and try to drive him back from the waist as the Soldier pulls out a glock and attempts to level it against Bucky’s temple.

Bucky gasps out, shoves an elbow to the Soldier’s solar plexus, and uses the brief moment of distraction to wrest the gun away from him. Bucky raises it and the Soldier, panting, eyes electric blue and dark with fury, shoves left as Bucky shoots.

The bullet goes wide, shattering the front windshield of a Toyota Corolla and the Soldier skids on his boots, his metal fingers dragging against the ground. There’s half a second’s delay and then the Soldier lunges for Bucky’s legs before Bucky can get another shot in. Bucky shouts out a curse and the gun gets knocked out of his hands, clattering to the ground and sliding under another car.

“Fuck!” Bucky hisses as the Soldier reels his arm back to take aim at his stomach.

Bucky curls out of the way a second before the metal fist bites into the asphalt. Gasping, Bucky forces his knee up and it hits the Soldier in the groin, driving in enough of a pained pause for Bucky to grasp the sensitive part of the Soldier’s arm, where the scarred flesh meets metal, and shove him one way while he rolls the other.

There’s the knife that the Soldier dropped behind and Bucky, panting and head dizzy from a moderate amount of pain, picks it up, aims it sideways, and throws it through the air.

It doesn’t hit its mark, but the Soldier’s eyes go wide as he moves his head out of the trajectory of the blade in the knick of time.

Behind them, there’s the sound of gunfire and small, barely contained blasts—screaming and shouting and the whir of helicopters in the air. Bucky thinks he hears Thor bellow, but his heart is beating in his ears and he pushes himself to his knees and then to his feet, barely hearing anything else, watching the person across from him carefully.

There’s an acute, surreal sense of deja vu.

He wipes the back of his wrist across his mouth and his skin comes away smeared with blood.

Bucky’s head rings from the violence, his mind cloudy with cognitive dissonance: the then and the now, him as the Winter Soldier and Steve across from him, in Captain’s blue; a knife in Bucky’s hand then and a knife in his hand now, smoke curling around them; blue eyes—electric blue eyes—intimate violence and—a strap that breaks, a mask that falls.

Bucky knows this song and dance. He has it memorized, the sore quality of it, like a bruise he’s never been able to stop pressing. He knows what to expect and yet when it happens, the ground moves beneath his feet anyway.

His fingers curl into his palms, nails digging into flesh, his mouth knocked askew with shock.

It’s one thing to expect it and another thing to see it.

Steve doesn’t know him, his blue eyes wiped painfully clear of any recognition. Bucky’s disorientation increases. He sees Steve through his own eyes; he sees himself through Steve’s eyes; then and now-now and then. Mirror images of the same, horrifying reflection.

How could this have happened?

“Steve?” Bucky gasps.

The blond Winter Soldier’s eyes rove over him and Bucky knows what he’s thinking. He knows what Steve cannot remember. He knows what he’s starting to.

 _The man on the bridge_ , Bucky thinks—thought. Thinks. _I knew him._

Steve’s eyebrows furrow and he turns fully.

His hood has fallen. The sunlight catches in long, dirty blond hair.

Bucky hears it, an echo of his own voice, hollow and confused. Him of ten years ago. Steve of now.

 _The man on the bridge_ , Steve will think. _I knew him._

Out loud he will say—

“Who the hell is Steve?” Steve asks.

Bucky understands now why Steve hadn’t been able to answer him, back then.

*

“This one,” Thor says, tiredly. “It is like our world, but wrong, somehow.”

Bucky shifts his grip on the steering wheel, looks over his shoulder, and shifts into the next lane. His side is sore from where he and Steve were grappling. He has scrapes along his arms, bruised ribs, his knee is kind of banged up, and his head aches from that unshakeable kind of tension that comes from clenching your jaw too tight for too long.

He looks like shit and he feels like shit. Bucky Barnes is straight up not having a good time.

“It wasn’t—” he starts and stops. He swallows roughly, his voice strangely hoarse. “It wasn’t supposed to be him.”

“The Captain?”

Bucky exhales shakily. “This is fucked up.”

Thor, who’s looking no less worse for the wear, with cuts along his forehead and a large bruise blooming along his clean-shaven jaw, glances up at the rearview mirror to catch Bucky’s eye. This Thor looks different from all of the Thors he’s been so far—clean faced, blue-eyed, with long-hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, he looks like he’s one silver earring and a sleeve of bad tattoos away from being in a boy band.

Judging by the black uniform and the gun strapped to Thor’s side, he’s not performing sets at Madison Square Garden. There’s a small patch at his chest, a white bird logo on black. Here, Thor’s a SHIELD Agent and Bucky is—

“That, definitely is wrong,” Thor says. But then he offers a smile. “Although you look very handsome, of course.”

Bucky snorts and looks up to glance at his tired, dirty face. His hair is hanging lank by his shoulders, blood crusted at his temple, and further below, a quick scan and—his gut tightens. It doesn’t look right on him, the shining silver star on his chest.

Bucky Barnes has been a lot of things, but this is by far the worst. He’s never been the person to hang your hopes on, the moon in the sky, the signal for help in the dark of night. Steve is who you call if you want to save the world, not Bucky. Bucky has his own shit to deal with, he doesn’t have the brain capacity, the patience, or the fucking temperament to throw his body out of a fucking plane every time a politician with a special phone and an agenda to burn makes a special call to a special friend and calls it a humanitarian mission on the news.

He guesses he’s just glad he hadn’t appeared in the red-white-and-blue suit.

“This is fucked up,” Bucky repeats. “The next person to call me Captain America is going to get shot in the kneecaps.”

“Well that is one way to set yourself apart,” Thor says. He sighs. “How did you know the...Midgardian forces would come?”

Bucky looks at the rearview mirror, squinting and wondering if he’s being too paranoid about the silver car following them. He doesn’t think HYDRA or SHIELD-as-HYDRA would start tailing them in a Honda fucking Civic, but ruling things like that out was how you got a fucking knockoff supersoldier crushing his metal fist through your rooftop and flinging you off a bridge. Bucky doesn’t have time for that, even if he has a few words to say to that current knockoff supersoldier.

“I’ve...been here before,” Bucky says. “Kind of. Like this, but opposite.”

Thor raises an eyebrow and Bucky lets out a harried breath.

Bucky’s brain is a patchwork quilt of half-memories and things he’s certain he’s done, and for which he has questionable culpability, but those weeks before Steve had knocked the programming out of his brain—they’re there, rattling around inside of him, with all of the uncertain knowledge of treasure buried under sand in a spot that he’s forgotten to mark with an x. He knows he hadn’t gotten caught on the highway that day. He knows that Steve and Sam and Natasha had.

He couldn’t find Sam in the wreckage of this highway and he didn’t have time to wrestle with a gun held to the head by Rumlow and his fucking gang of violent white thugs. So when Steve had stared at him from across the street, confused and livid, like a live wire, and Bucky had known how this would go. He swallowed a horrifying ache in the bottom of his throat and took a step back. And then another. And another. He let Steve go and Steve, dealing with the aftershocks of his mind slowly being torn apart, made his own escape as sirens sounded in the distance.

Bucky found Thor clutching his side, his suit torn, his jaw bleeding, staring after someone who Bucky had a sharp suspicion about. The other man—the other _Soldier_ what the _fuck_ —jumped off the side of the highway ramp, following after Steve.

Knowing they had mere minutes before the HYDRA-SHIELD consortium showed up, Bucky, grabbed Thor’s elbow and forced the two of them into a mad, silent retreat before they could find themselves tied and gagged in the back of an unmarked prison van.

They stole a car somewhere along the way. It’s all very blurry now. Bucky’s a supersoldier, but even his _non_ -knock off serum body has taken a good hit or ten.

“Where are we going?” Thor asks as they pass a line of cars on the Interstate.

“We can’t do this alone,” Bucky says through grit teeth. “There’s someone we have to pick up.”

  
Bucky’s half-memories from this universe war with the half-memories from his own, meaning he has a fucking 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle to solve using puzzle pieces from three different boxes where all of the shapes are similar, but none are exactly the same. What this means, in a roundabout way, is that he knows vaguely where he must be in this reverse story, but he’s pretty sure that if he goes now to where Steve had gone _then_ , in their own universe, Bucky won’t find who he needs to find in this one. That would actually be useful and let no one ever say that the Tesseract is an entity for _good_. Everything is exceptionally annoying.

“Are you certain he will be here?” Thor asks as Bucky pulls off the interstate. He thinks this is the right way. Some part of him knows, like a gut instinct he hasn’t fully examined in the light.

“I sure fucking hope so,” Bucky says. “We need reinforcements.”

“You need your best friend,” Thor says.

“He isn’t my best friend,” Bucky says automatically. “He’s an impulsive, reckless, good-for-nothing, opinionated, beans-for-brains—”

“Yes, I am gathering that is your type,” Thor says, cracking a tired smile.

Bucky scowls.

“Bucky,” Thor says. He waits a few moments, eyes on the road, before letting out a little sigh and turning his head.

Bucky keeps his eyes on the road, his fingers gripping the steering wheel tightly, but makes a little sound of acknowledgment.

“Loki,” Thor says, just like Bucky knew he would. “The Loki of this world—he is different. He is neither God nor human.” A pause. “What is he?”

There’s no clear answer to the rules of these worlds. Bucky doesn’t know if the Tesseract creates new branches of their reality or if each of these realities had always existed, one on top of the other, with no one ever the wiser. He doesn’t know what happens when they crash into each of these little universes—whether he and Thor change the trajectory of what happens or if what they’re doing was always going to happen that way regardless. If Bucky doesn’t have answers for entangled timelines, he sure as hell doesn’t have answers for entangled worlds.

He can only say what he knows of the world _he_ had existed in and what that might mean for a world that looks exactly like it while being nothing like it at all.

So who is Loki in the reflection of their world—the mirror complement to their reality?

Bucky doesn’t have a real answer, but he has an intuitive one. In his world there had been only one Winter Soldier that had survived. In this world, it seems maybe there are two.

“A supersoldier,” Bucky says finally. “A brainwashed, tortured, scientifically enhanced superhuman meant to be used as a weapon.”

Thor takes in a breath.

“Just a weapon, Thor,” Bucky says. “Nothing else.”

“Is he still in there?” Thor asks, quietly.

It’s Bucky’s turn to take in a breath. Is Loki still in there? Is Steve? It’s not an easy question to answer, even when you’ve been in the same position—the same person, wiped clean, over and over, your sense of self clinically separated from you by the sharp edge of a blade and a laser aimed between the eyes.

Maybe there’s nothing there and maybe what’s left over is covered by layers of sediment that can’t be carefully excavated, but needs to be blasted through.

The truth is that they are there, Bucky thinks.

The truth is that they will never be the same.

“Yeah,” he says. “They’re still in there, somewhere.”

Thor nods and refocuses out the front window, watching the road as Bucky turns down D.C. streets he knows by muscle memory.

“He has been tortured too much for too many lifetimes,” Thor says, after a while. “My brother.”

Bucky says nothing.

“In the next life, I hope he is given a chance at peace,” Thor says and falls quiet again.

Bucky exhales and pulls the car up a familiar gravel driveway.

  
Sam opens the door, his eyes widening with surprise.

“Hi,” Bucky says. “Sorry to barge in.”

“Everyone is trying to kill us,” Thor adds, hopefully.

Sam scans the two of them quickly and Bucky holds his breath, unsure, for a moment, whether he’s miscalculated this, if in this universe Sam just has no idea who any of them are or what they do and if they’re going to find themselves—

“Well what else is new?” Sam says. “Come inside before my neighbors start thinking I’m running a halfway home for beefy white guys.”

“You’re not _not_ running that,” Bucky mutters in immense relief.

He follows Thor inside and Sam locks the door behind them.

  
Universes might change, but Sam Wilson, it turns out, does not. He crosses his arms across his broad chest as Bucky and Thor start babbling at him about SHIELD and HYDRA and murderous supersoldiers and the Winter Soldier and near death situations on packed highways and, for flavor, multiverses and alternate realities and the Tesseract, because if they’re trying to seek refuge here they might as well go for broke.

To his defense, Sam’s skepticism is carefully tempered, resulting only in a single raised eyebrow and the one time he stops Bucky in the middle of a run-on sentence to say, “Sorry, did you say the multiverse?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Bucky says. “It’s kind of like—you know a Rubik’s cube?”

He nurses a cup of coffee while next to him, Thor is happily finishing off his second beer and a reheated slice of lasagna the size of a dinner plate.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Always hated those things. I could only ever get one side to match and then all the other sides were a mess of colors.”

“Yeah, like that!” Bucky says. “It’s like, someone keeps turning all of the sides and every turn is a new universe and Thor and I keep collecting these pieces to try and make the whole thing one color and when we do that, hopefully it’ll fix whatever the fuck Steve and Loki broke and we can go home.”

“And Steve is…Captain America,” Sam says. There’s that eyebrow.

“Steve is Captain America and Loki is a Norse God,” Bucky says. “Usually.”

“He is a frost giant technically,” Thor says, mouth full of pasta. “We are not Gods in a proper sense. We can die, for example.”

“The guy in the SHIELD suit is a Norse God?” Sam asks, jerking his head at Thor.

“Asgardian,” Thor beams.

“Ignore him,” Bucky says, flapping his hand in Thor’s direction. “Everything’s fucked up here, Sam. Steve—he’s not supposed to be the Winter Soldier. I am. He didn’t fall from the train. _I did_.”

Sam sighs and unfolds his hands from his chest and takes a seat at the kitchen table across from Thor.

“You’re Captain America,” Sam says. “The same guy I met running a few weeks ago. We learned about you in school books. You’re an American legend. The first superhero. The guy who punched Hitler and saved Manhattan from nuclear bombs and then again from the aliens a couple of years ago. You’re saying that wasn’t you?”

Bucky puts his cup down on the table.

“I’m saying it’s not supposed to be me. The person who was supposed to do all of those things—the guy who saves humanity, the guy who would throw his entire fucking life away just to be good...that’s not me, Sam. That’s Steve.”

Next to him, Thor’s mouth folds into a slight frown.

“You’re the one in the textbooks, Cap,” Sam says. “Not this Steve guy. It’s—okay hold on.”

Sam pulls his phone out and Bucky looks at Thor, who shrugs.

“There,” Sam says and shoves his phone at Bucky. “See? That’s you.”

There’s a picture of the Avengers online from what Bucky recognizes was the Chitauri invasion of New York. It’s a group shot of the Avengers—Clint with his bow aimed at an alien and Thor with his guns out, the Hulk beating his chest and Stark in his red-and-gold suit, a Black woman with a blue cape and a hammer, and in the middle of them all—Bucky, in red-white-and-blue, a shield on his back and a long-barreled gun in his hands.

Bucky cradles the phone, feeling strange, the picture making his brain itch.

“Is that Valkyrie?” Thor murmurs, looking over his shoulder.

“This is—” Bucky says. It catches in his throat, a strange guilt he can’t quite explain. He shakes his head and gives the phone back to Sam. “Maybe this Bucky is your Cap. But I’m not. I’m the Winter Soldier—was the Winter Soldier. I was an assassin. Brainwashed HYDRA goon. I was the bad guy, Sam. This suit isn’t mine and this life isn’t mine.”

“Is this Steve yours?” Sam asks and Bucky’s heart stutters.

“What?”

 _Is_ this Steve his? Bucky wonders. Are any of them?

Sam sighs and pockets his phone.

“Listen, I don’t care what universe you’re from or who you were there,” he says. “In _this_ one, you’re Captain America. Or you were. Or...whatever. So whether you think this life is rightfully yours or not, it’s what you have. _You’re_ what we have, Barnes.”

Bucky frowns.

“And if what you’ve said about SHIELD and HYDRA are right, then it’s up to you to stop them,” Sam says, looking him in the eyes. “Not this Steve person.”

Bucky doesn’t know how to explain it better—that he _can’t_. That this is all wrong—that _he’s_ wrong, wrong for the job, wrong for the position, wrong for the suit. Bucky Barnes isn’t a hero and Steve Rogers isn’t the villain. It doesn’t make sense. This _world_ doesn’t make sense.

Suddenly there’s a large, warm hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“He’s right,” Thor says. “For better or worse, this is where we are now. What will happen if we don’t stop the HYDRA as the Captain did in our world?”

That’s hazy too—a fight on the roof of a tall building, another on a helicarrier, looking up and shooting and being dragged from under a beam and a man with blue eyes beneath him and _you’re my mission, you’re my mission!_ —but he knows the answer. HYDRA’s end goal has never been in question.

“They’ll kill millions,” Bucky says, bitterly. “Reorganize the government. Nazis everywhere, a new world order.”

Sam lets out a curse under his breath and Thor finishes his beer.

“Well then,” he says. “That does not sound as though we have a choice at all, does it, _Captain_?”

  
Bucky curses to himself. He’s stripped out of the Captain suit, the dirty, battered uniform piled in a corner while he turns the water on as hot as it will go. He closes his eyes from the spray of the water, trying to exhale the knot of anxiety in his chest.

It’s one thing to go tumbling through different realities—universes—the multiverse, whatever the fuck it’s called—and to be confronted with a different life in each one. He can handle that—being Bucky, but a different Bucky, one whose slate is wiped clean of the blood in his own past, a Bucky whose backstory might not be entirely clean, but still isn’t _his_. He can be that—a Bucky who still revolves around Steve, but a Steve who is still fundamentally _Steve._

It’s another thing to fall into a reality that is a shadow of the one he’s used to, a world that echoes his own, but turns it inside out and upside down, a mirror universe where everything Bucky has ever known is made—not _false_ , but different. Wrong. There are a lot of things that Bucky can withstand, but looking into familiar blue eyes that should know him and seeing them wiped clean isn’t one of them.

He tries to control his breathing, grabbing the bar of soap and swiping it across his heated skin, working up a lather as they flash before him, like a slideshow projected against the blank wall of his mind, the click-click-click of a projector as it moves from one memory to another—overtaken in a field in Italy, blinding pain and the bite of a needle into his skin, a metal table against his back, screaming— _screaming_ —until his voice rubs itself raw, an eye fit into the scope of a rifle, finger on the trigger, recoil down his arm, the silent sound of a bullet hitting a skull; an outstretched hand, falling, falling— _falling_ , searing pain down his side, an arm gone, waking up and falling asleep and more injections and the sense of losing—the world hazy and his memories even more so—losing, words and pictures and _self_ , until one day he wakes up strapped to a chair with a mouthguard between his teeth and metal around his head and he panics because it’s not there anymore—who he is—who he _was_ is no longer there.

The thing is, Bucky has been tortured, taken apart at the very seams of him, flesh torn from bone, and humanity ripped away—piece by piece—from a part of himself that he doesn’t think even lasers could reach. He is a man with so much death on his hands, the blood has sunk beneath his skin and stained the marrow of his bones. He doesn’t expect for there to come a day when his ledger is wiped clean. He’s not a man who expects salvation for the things he’s done or forgiveness for the weapon he was forced to become.

There is something to be said about that acceptance and—if not peace—the resignation it brings with it.

But one day, after he’s given back his name, Bucky had opened the door to his apartment and found someone in his kitchen, his notebook in hand, shoulders hunched over—caution, but not _fear_ —and Steve had turned to look at him, careful and hopeful and— _hopeful_ —and that’s when it had been made clear.

Bucky has nothing but scars and shadows to show for most of his life, but he also—inexplicably, unaccountably—has— _had_ —this, something so terribly, intensely good he could barely stand to look at it.

So there is a lot that Bucky has withstood in his life—an incalculable amount that he has borne—but this he cannot stand: that in some universe out there—this universe, this mirrorverse—the person who had had to bear all of that pain was not him, but Steve.

“Fuck,” Bucky rasps, fists curled, shoved against the slick tile. “ _Fuck._

He sucks in a hot, shaky breath and washes the suds off. He grabs the shampoo blindly and squeezes too hard, is left with a palm full of liquid that he then recklessly scrubs through his hair.

He’ll do whatever it takes. He doesn’t know the boundaries of this world and frankly, he doesn’t give a shit. The rest of it can go to hell. But if he can help Steve escape his trauma even a day—a minute, a _second_ —sooner than he himself had, he’ll do it.

He’ll take SHIELD, HYDRA, the United States of fucking America—every single entity responsible for the blank, haunted look in Steve’s eyes—and burn them all the fuck down.

  
“We can’t stay here,” Bucky says.

He’s showered and in fresh clothes, lent to him by Sam, which means he no longer looks like Captain America’s perverse twin with a checkered history of murder, and thank god for small miracles because it helps him clear his head. It feels like he can breathe, to have that proverbial weight off his shoulder. He doesn’t know how Steve does it.

“The HYDRA, they will come for us no matter where we go,” Thor says.

He’s showered as well, although Sam’s clothes fit his body a little less appropriately. He’s in a white t-shirt that’s stretched so tightly across his chest, Bucky’s surprised it hasn’t ripped down the middle out of protest.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “But we don’t have to lead them straight to Sam. We—fuck, we endangered you by coming here. I’m sorry.”

“No, none of that,” Sam says. “I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself. I don’t need some punkass superheroes making that decision for me.”

Bucky gives Sam a thin smile. What a righteous asshole. Unsurprising as fuck.

“What we’re doing is dangerous,” Bucky says. “It’s stupid. We do this right and we save a lot of fucking lives, but we do this wrong and they’ll throw you into an underwater bunker for the rest of your natural life.”

“I know,” Sam says with a nod. He crosses his arms at his chest. “I was in the military, Cap. I know what the government does to people who try to prove they ain’t shit.”

“This isn’t—” Bucky says, but Sam shakes his head, firm.

“I _know_ ,” he says. “Captain America says he needs my help and I’m not gonna say no. I know the risk and I’m saying, I’m qualified to help. And I want to. Are you gonna let me?”

Bucky exhales and feels—to his surprise—relief. He hadn’t realized how much he was counting on Sam. Maybe he’s never realized how much he’s always counting on Sam.

“Yes,” Bucky says. “Thank you.”

Next to them, Thor straightens, sliding his guns into the holster he’s saved from his SHIELD uniform. He brushes his hands off on his pants and smiles.

“Splendid,” he says. “Because we do not have much time to make our escape.”

It’s only then that Bucky’s senses suddenly sharpen. There’s an uptick in his heart rate as his awareness picks up at the edges, his gaze flickering out the window to the clear space between Sam’s curtains.

For a moment, he sees nothing. Then he sees the end of the sniper rifle.

“Shit,” Sam swears.

“Yes,” Thor says, calmly. “I do believe we have been found.”

  
They shove off from the kitchen through the front room, hurtling out the door as they hear a shot shatter the kitchen window.

Cursing, heart pounding, they throw themselves into the stolen car and Bucky steps on the gas.

*

Thor sticks his head out through the window, looking behind them to head off any tails they might have picked up. He has a gun in his hand, ready to discharge, but after a few miles of Bucky taking sharp turns and breaking every speeding law set by the District of Washington and some by the state of Maryland, he slides his torso back into the car, breathing hard and running a hand through his wind-blown hair.

“There must not have been many,” he says to Bucky and Sam. “Or your driving reminded them of the real danger and they left in fear.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky says through grit teeth. His fingers are clenched so hard over the steering wheel that they’re turning white at the knuckles. He keeps looking in his rearview mirror and once every few minutes, he turns down another road.

“So what are the chances that HYDRA doesn’t know every detail of my life by now?” Sam says from the back seat.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Bucky says. “Fuck, we were so reckless. I was—I should have known better, I _know_ how they play.”

“Was it him?” Thor asks, turning his head toward Bucky once he’s put his piece away. “Steve?”

Bucky shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says.

After a moment, Thor sucks in a breath.

“Was it...Loki?”

Bucky catches his eyes in the rearview mirror and then tears his gaze away, refocusing on the road.

“I don’t know,” he says. “All I saw was the end of a rifle. It could have been either of them. It could have been anyone.

“We’ve gotta get off the road,” Sam says. He leans forward from the back seat and points toward a sign that directs them out of Bethesda and deeper into Maryland. “Take us toward Wheaton-Glenmont. I got a pal there who works at a motel. A discreet kind of place. We can stay the night and regroup.”

Bucky nods silently and takes the exit toward the place Sam mentioned.

Thor leans back in his seat, resting his head against the headrest. He closes his eyes and the entire drive to the motel, he says nothing and is sure to think of even less.

  
The motel is an unmemorable brick building that is too far from the highway to catch the average weary traveler. It’s tucked into a neighborhood of some sort, with a small parking lot that holds a few nondescript black cars and thick curtains drawn across every window.

“I have a guess as to the business conducted in such a place,” Thor says as they get out of the car.

At the front glass door, a man in a nice suit wearing sunglasses enters as discreetly as he can. With him is a woman in a drab suit who is too clearly trying not to bring attention to herself.

Sam shrugs.

“You pay and they don’t ask questions,” he says.

Thor has to admit that is an ideal scenario for them currently.

“The Cap suit doesn’t leave a lot of room for a wallet, Sam,” Bucky says, looking over the roof of the car at him.

Sam nods and closes his door beside him.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “Like I said, I got a friend.”

  
Sam’s friend gets them a suite with two adjoining rooms. They don’t have much on them except for weapons, so they pile all of them on the table in one of the rooms.

“We’re going to need more than three handguns and two knives if we’re going to walk up to the Triskelion,” Bucky says.

“I’ve never liked that building,” Sam says.

“Is there a plan beyond simply walking up to them?” Thor asks. He checks the cartridges and finds them emptier than he’d like. He wishes he had Mjolnir. Midgardian weapons cause a lot of damage for what they are, but they are primitive in a way that is almost boring. “This body is trained in many things, but multiplying bullets is not one of them.”

Sam locks the door and lowers himself onto the edge of the bed.

“We need your wings,” Bucky says to Sam. He’s leaning beside the table, fists curled against the tabletop.

“How do you—” Sam starts and then cuts himself off with a look at Thor, who blinks at him. “Right. Alternate universe. It’s locked in a government building. Behind three layers of security. Top level shit. Impenetrable.”

Bucky makes a frustrated noise, but Thor tilts his head. Whoever this Thor was—the SHIELD agent from this world—he was more than an expert gunman. There are blueprints in Thor’s mind, schematics and secrets and the ability to scale walls when needed. He was a spy, he realizes. He _is_ a spy.

“That is no problem,” he says and the two others look at him.

Thor rolls a sore shoulder and begins checking the next gun.

“I enjoy a good challenge, despite what my brother might think,” he says. Bucky and Sam give him a blank look, so Thor explains. “He is always claiming I am lazy, but that’s not the case. I simply choose what challenges to take. It’s smarter that way.”

Sam blinks and Bucky says, “Okay. We’ll unpack that later. You can get Wilson’s wings out?”

“Yes,” Thor says and closes the slide with a click. “And perhaps some other arms. No chance there’s anything forged by the dwarves in your governmental facility, is there?”

“You know, I want to say no, but we had an alien invasion like two years ago, so I couldn’t actually say,” Sam says.

“Splendid!” Thor beams at him. “Finally, something goes our way.”

“Okay,” Bucky says and straightens. “I need to find Fury. Make contact with him. When Steve did this, he took the whole fucking battalion with him. But I think Hill found him first?”

He falters and his voice tightens with uncertainty. “But I don’t know where he is. Fuck, I don’t even know if he’s still...pretending to be dead here? How the fuck do I find a man who’s pretending to be dead?”

It’s as though something occurs to him in that moment. Thor can see the brief panic light his grey eyes.

“I don’t know a single fucking thing about Fury. I don’t even know if everything’s the same here? If he’s our ally? But we can’t do this alone. Holy shit. Fuck—”

Thor places a large hand on Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky, strung tight as a wire, bites back the rest of his curse.

Thor hasn’t yet seen his companion this at a loss, but he thinks he understands. He too has been given the mantle of something he wasn’t ready for, far before his time.

“Steve isn’t the Captain here,” Thor says to Bucky. “This isn’t our world and this mission is not his. Do you understand me?”

Bucky swallows roughly and nods, then shakes his head.

“You are the Captain in this world, Bucky. Not Steve Rogers, but you. Just as I could never hope to be my father, you cannot hope to be Steve. So do not try,” Thor says firmly, with a slight smile.

Bucky’s mouth turns down at the corners.

“Be yourself instead,” Thor says. “How would _Bucky Barnes_ run the mission?”

Silence greets what he’s said. Once that would have made Thor uncertain, but he understands better now that sometimes people simply need time. For a moment he doesn’t think Bucky’s going to listen—that is Thor’s general experience with every person he has ever known, after all—but then the light panic in his companion’s eyes slides away and he nods slowly.

Bucky takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I’d scout,” he says. “Gather information. Steve…follows his instincts immediately. Rushes in ass first. But that makes me nervous.”

“You would approach it differently,” Thor observes.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He frowns, thinking. “I think I would.”

Sam says, joins them at the table with a grin and a nod. “So tell us what to do, Cap.”

Thor thinks that their mission here hasn’t changed. He and Bucky still need to find another piece of the Tesseract. They need to find Steve and Loki and they need to go home. But there’s something different here, in a way that Thor can’t quite place. Unlike the other worlds that they’ve been to so far, this one unnerves Bucky Barnes. Thor thinks: this isn’t just another world for him—this one is personal.

Bucky takes a breath, but seems steadier when he straightens.

“You two get what we need. I secure the perimeter. Gather intel. We devise a way to breach the Triskelion. We shoot anyone who gets in the way.”

Thor grins and claps Bucky on the shoulder.

“You heard what the good Captain said,” he says to Sam. “Let us go find your wings. And then he will allow us to shoot someone.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> APPARENTLY a lot of you are concerned about the Steve and Loki that gets left behind in each world after our Bucky and Thor are catapulted into the next reality! I am here to assure you that Steve and Loki in each reality do get their happy ending. The way I've been thinking about this is that our Bucky and Thor slot into the original Bucky and Thor's lives in the AU they get pitched into. In that AU, they end up with a mishmash of their own memories and some of the memories of the Bucky and Thor they've taken over. Sort of invasion of the AU bodysnatchers. 
> 
> When our Bucky and Thor leave, the original Bucky and Thor return to their bodies. Maybe they have some lingering deja vu or maybe they're just confused for a while, but I like to think that their actions wouldn't be too different from our Bucky and Thor's. That's to say, I think our Bucky and Thor come in and nudge these storylines along in the natural direction they would progress anyway. They just speed those realizations, etc. up a bit. So even though they leave the original Bucky and Thor from those realities behind to clean up the mess, ultimately what they clean up is...likely what would have happened roundabout anyway. 
> 
> tl;dr Bucky, Thor, Steve, and Loki get their happy endings in ALL AUs, even if they are off-screen. imo! 
> 
> You can reject that if you'd like, but I personally attest to the idea that Steve and Bucky and Thor and Loki are soulmates across the multiverse, sometimes in a different configuration, but always destined to end up together (romantically or platonically, whatever your preferred poison is) in some manner. :) 
> 
> I hope this helps!


	12. Chapter Twelve. [ fourth oddity: mirrorverse ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He understands it better now. God, he understands all of it—fighting with the Avengers, making an enemy of the State, becoming a fugitive, throwing his reputation and his entire life away for him—better. 
> 
> Bucky would do it too. Bucky would do anything for the person in front of him. 
> 
> That’s the kind of story they have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been the MOST exhausting week. I am completely spent. So thank you in advance for reading and for your comments--I genuinely appreciate and look forward to each of them. ♥
> 
>  **cw:** depictions of violence

It’s easier to hotwire another car, drive it in the opposite direction—deeper into Maryland toward Baltimore—and then take a sharp turn back down to D.C., break into a heavily secure federal government building, and retrieve Wilson’s wings and upgraded ammunition than Thor had imagined it would be. Even without his Asgardian powers, it’s almost a laughably simple task, although Thor is unsure whether that is because he is an excellent spy in this universe or if Midgardians in every universe are this terrible at security.

“No tails,” Thor says after a few miles and folds his body back into the car, putting away the upgraded pistol they’d swiped from the Feds. This is unlike any other gun that Thor is familiar with, although the light blue core makes Thor think they’ve stolen more than the United States government would be happy about.

“You have a very specific skill set,” Sam says. He’s the one driving this time and catches Thor’s eyes in the rearview mirror as Thor settles back into his seat.

“I believe I was a Norwegian spy in this universe,” Thor says.

He had wracked through his brain on the drive to D.C. and what he had found was half-memories of an Institute over 400 miles north of Oslo where he had been raised in not particularly kind ways. They’re not the kind of memories he cares to revisit, but his mind does catch on one detail, as expected as it is impossible to ignore.

“I didn’t know Norway had spies,” Sam says.

An orphan boy, three years younger than him, who had been brought to the Institute as much for his lack of parentage as for his terrifyingly brilliant mind. Thor doesn’t have to linger on his memories in this world to recognize the sharp green eyes or the dark hair that brushed the top of thin-set shoulders.

“Every country has spies,” Thor says, with a thin smile. He leans his elbow against the passenger door and stares out the window. “Some are made more kindly than others.”

“I don’t think any country does right by the people who serve them,” Sam says, after a minute. “I don’t think kindness plays any part of it.”

“Sometimes you do not even volunteer to serve it,” Thor says. “Sometimes you are chosen and left with no choice.”

Sam nods.

“Even less kindness, in that case.”

Thor doesn’t know much about Sam Wilson—their paths as Avengers hadn’t crossed for very long before the world had ended and everything had gone to shit—but he does know him to be measured and perhaps even wise. Or maybe he just seems that way next to a bunch of superheroes and borderline masochistic spies who are always itching for the next fight.

“Do you believe a person can recover from all of the cruelty they’ve faced, Sam Wilson?” Thor asks. “If cruelty is all that they have ever known? If that cruelty...is all that has shaped them?”

Sam considers that.

“It’s rare that cruelty is all that someone experiences,” he says. “Even if it is most of it. People experience kindness in the strangest ways, when they least expect it.”

Thor’s brain flickers over memories that are new to him: a blue room with bars at the windows, pale instructors with cold eyes and colder voices, knives and guns in small hands trembling to hold them straight, punishment, and deprivation, and cold, and little sips of poison to inculcate.

“I don’t know about that,” he says, softly.

Sam’s mouth turns down a little at the corners.

“Are you asking for a reason?”

Thor doesn’t sigh, but he does feel it gather in his lungs. He’s tired, is the thing. He was tired before they began this journey and he’s even more tired now. That little orphan boy, with the bitter smiles and soft laughs—the one who Thor had trained with every day; who had been honed razor sharp, a blade against a whetstone; the boy who Thor had taken apart during the day and knit back together at night; the boy who had drawn Thor’s blood first, and apologized for it later; that boy and the hollow supersoldier across from him and his own brother and a hundred thousand Lokis before him and around him—and the thing is that Thor is tired, because in every world he finds a Loki, and in every world he loses him again.

Thor hadn’t recognized him at first, when they had fought on the highway. Not initially. Loki had something dark smeared across his eyes and a dark hood drawn up, a sword rimmed in a glowing blue—the same glow as his eyes—and he had tried to gut Thor through the stomach. It hadn’t been personal. Thor had shot him back. An eye for a stomach, or some attempted murder thereof. But then they had met eyes across the top of a burning car and the jolt of recognition had only gone in one direction.

This is the thing Thor is so sick of: not knowing which Loki is across from him or what happened to him before Thor had gotten there.

“There is someone I used to know,” Thor says. “I do not think this world has been good to him. And I do not know if I have lost him forever.” He tilts his face into his hand. “I do not know if it is worth it to try to get him back.”

That’s not entirely true, but his stomach hurts and his chest aches and he just wants—one time, when he doesn’t have to look at his brother and know something has hurt him.

“Is it someone you care about?” Sam asks.

“Yes,” Thor says.

“Is it someone you love?” Sam says.

Thor rubs a hand through his hair and then turns slightly toward Sam.

“Yes.”

Sam nods and then smiles.

“The world is shit to a lot of people,” he says. “Most people. I was in the military, Thor, so I saw the best of people and I saw the absolute worst. Some things you can forgive and some things you can’t. But you have to make that decision for yourself, you can’t let the world do it for you.”

“I don’t follow,” Thor says with a frown.

“I guess what I’m saying is, morality is complicated, but love doesn’t have to be,” Sam says. “Sometimes, the world tells you that a person isn’t worth saving. Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t, but all that matters is whether they’re worth saving to _you_. Sometimes, a person you think is beyond your reach is just waiting for you to reach out toward them.”

Thor lets out a breath.

This is the lesson that he learned too late in his own lifetime. It is the lesson he keeps learning again and again, but—to what purpose? His Loki is lost and this is just another one, a different one, one more Loki who will make no difference to _his_ Loki at the end.

The more he tries, the more he loses.

  
But does that mean he shouldn’t try?

“If I save this Loki,” Thor says slowly. “It may make no difference to my own. If I reach out to him, it may change nothing at all.”

“Sure,” Sam says, reasonably. He turns off at an exit and pulls into an empty parking lot, not too far from the motel. “But maybe it will. And even if it doesn’t, you’ll make a difference to this one. This Loki. If you care for him, isn’t that enough?”

Is that enough?

Is it enough for Thor to go through every universe, stumbling into the Loki there—seeing him, having him, letting him go—and changing him, even if Thor doesn’t stay to see what that change might be?

Is it enough for Loki to have been sold to HYDRA by the Institute, tortured and brainwashed, whittled into a brainless, killing machine, and for Thor to simply meet him—steel against steel—and hope that he ignites a spark that will flare to life long after he’s left?

Is it enough to try and not know what happens after?

Thor doesn’t know the answer, really.

He takes a breath and Sam kills the engine. His companion looks over at him with an expression that is kind and, above all, understanding.

Thor nods.

But, he thinks, he’s not opposed to finding out.

*

Bucky spends an hour scouting the perimeter of the hotel, climbing up trees and illegally accessing rooftops through locked stairwells of multiple buildings he has no problem breaking into. Once he’s satisfied that there’s no extraneous surveillance of the premises and no snipers settled on rooftops across the street, he walks the extra 20 minutes to the nearest phone store, buys a burner, activates it, texts a semi-cryptic message to what he thinks he remembers Maria Hill’s emergency line to be, puts it into his pocket, and walks the 20 minutes back to the hotel.

By the time he takes the staircase up to their third floor ensuite rooms, Bucky feels better about the whole situation. Confronting his past is something his SHIELD-appointed therapist would be thrilled to see him doing, if not in quite the way they had both imagined it.

Still, there’s something about this—about going through the motions he might have gone through that day in his own world, had he been the hero and not the villain. He had pulled the trigger for HYDRA that day, but in this world, he’ll give himself a different ending. A do-over. Shove a gun into Bucky’s hand now and he’ll focus the muzzle in between Alexander Pierce’s fucking eyes and shoot him with a fucking smile.

Bucky swipes the card against the lock pad on their door and watches it chirp a bright green. He opens the door and steps inside.

With Thor and Sam gone to retrieve more weapons, Bucky is well aware of how quiet the room is. There’s an unbroken, tentative silence to a space where there is no one else; a still quality to the air.

Or, at least, it’s supposed to be that way.

The door clicks shut behind him and immediately Bucky feels the hairs go up at the back of his neck.

He slides a hand into the inside of Sam’s denim jacket and freezes when he hears the gun cock.

“Don’t,” a voice says.

Bucky tries to keep his breathing calm. He takes a step into the room and from the desk, shrouded in shadows from the pulled curtains, he hears him finger the hammer of the gun again.

“Stop,” he says. “Stay where you are.”

Bucky does as he’s told, his hands in the air in front of him.

Still, the other man doesn’t move. He doesn’t need to, really. Bucky has been in this situation before, sat where he’s sitting, thought what he’s thinking—more or less. It’s not a perfect translation, because Bucky’s not Alexander Pierce and Steve isn’t Bucky. Still, the almost parallel sits in Bucky’s brain strangely, two images that hold similar shapes and similar colors, but don’t quite match up.

“Steve,” Bucky says cautiously. “Put the gun down.”

Steve doesn’t.

“I won’t hurt you,” Bucky says. “I know what’s happening to you and I promise you, I won’t hurt you.”

Steve makes a disgruntled sound.

“Who are you?” Steve asks. His voice is cold, hollow in a way that makes Bucky’s breath snag in his chest. Steve Rogers is flint; he’s all heat and sparks and edges that burn. To have that robbed from him makes Bucky feel disoriented. “Why do I know you?”

“Can I see you?” Bucky asks, instead of answering. “Let me turn on a light.”

“No,” Steve’s voice warns sharply as Bucky reaches for the switch.

Bucky freezes immediately.

The tension in the room is so thick, it digs into his skin.

After a moment, Steve seems to lean back in his seat again.

“Why do I know…” he tries to say again and then, finding himself frustrated, switches mid-sentence. “Who are you?”

It’s one thing to empathize with your best friend because you know he’s been through the worst things imaginable and you’ve been having a hard time too. It’s another thing to know _exactly_ what has been done to him and know exactly why he’s asking the things he’s asking.

Bucky doesn’t have much time to think, so he answers honestly.

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes,” he says. He hears Steve’s voice echo in his ears, the same sentence from lifetimes ago: _your name is James Buchanan Barnes. I’m not gonna fight you._ “Bucky. You gave me that nickname. Do you remember?”

Bucky can’t see Steve’s face too well in the dark, but he’s still a supersoldier here and not even the knock off variety. He sees Steve’s expression tense, a frown between his blond brows.

“No,” Steve says roughly.

“What do you remember?” Bucky asks, softly.

Steve’s fingers don’t leave the gun. It’s the right question to ask. Bucky knows this intimately.

“Please, let me turn on the light,” Bucky says when Steve hasn’t moved.

This time, Steve doesn’t stop him. Bucky flips the switch.

The light flickers on, flooding the room and he’s sitting there, in the chair, frowning—struggling—blue eyes hard as flint and long, dirty blond hair like it hasn’t been cut in years. His face is grimmer, his mouth harder, and his nose is slightly crooked, as though it’s been broken twice and not set right. There’s dried blood on his neck and the tell-tale glint of metal on his right hand and he’s nothing like the Steve Bucky knows and yet still fundamentally him, still, fundamentally, Steve.

God, this sucks.

Steve still doesn’t move, but his eyes do flicker up to Bucky and in them Bucky understands the war he’s fighting—confusion and anger and dread and, somewhere buried deep beneath parts of himself that are almost completely dead, hope.

“Why?” Steve asks. He bites the word short, even though it’s only a syllable long.

Bucky thinks he understands this too.

“You’ve been brainwashed,” Bucky says. “Whenever you surface—they take you and put you back under. You’re their weapon, Steve. They’re destroying you and using you and they’ll continue to do that until you break free.”

Anger ripples across Steve’s face.

“Who is Steve?” he asks.

“You are. You’re Steven Grant Rogers,” Bucky says. “Your mom’s name was Sarah. You grew up in Brooklyn in a two bedroom apartment that you shared with her until she died. We lived out of each other’s pockets all our lives and then we went to war. I lost you to Zemo and then I lost you to—the Alps.”

Bucky says this heavily, swallowing. He remembers things that aren’t his memories, but are the _other_ Bucky’s memories. There’s a fast-moving train, sliding along tracks high above a valley of snow. He reaches for Steve’s hand. He misses by inches.

There’s a guilt here that he can’t overcome, a grief he will never be able to swallow.

“I should have caught you,” Bucky says quietly, staring at his best friend and seeing the remaining pieces of him. “I should have gone back for you.”

Steve’s mouth thins and he bares his teeth. He leers.

Bucky shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Steve, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

“I’m not _Steve_ ,” Steve growls. He shoves himself to his feet and mentally, Bucky quickly catalogues all of the ways in which he can get out of this hotel room. There aren’t a lot of options available. The best he can do is knock Steve out in close range and go back out the way he came.

“Okay, okay,” Bucky says and raises his hands again. “You’re not Steve. So who are you?”

Steve’s expression goes blank, almost as though he’s gone offline. Then he inhales sharply and shakes his head.

“They call me The Commander,” he says.

“Oh,” Bucky says, sadly.

Neither of them move. It’s a standoff of the most confusing variety—Steve holding Bucky at gunpoint and Bucky unarmed, neither of them willing to make the first move. In truth, Steve could have killed Bucky five times over by now. In truth, Bucky knows why he hasn’t.

“I know what they’re planning, St—Commander,” Bucky says, hastily changing names at Steve’s glare. “I’ve been where you are. I’ve been _you_. And you can’t let them do this. You know you can’t. They’re controlling you.”

“No,” Steve says, coldly. “You’re wrong. I control my own missions.”

“Please, believe me,” Bucky all but begs. “Innocent people will die. You don’t have to listen to them. You can stop this. You can stop Project Insight with me and—”

“What’s that?” Steve asks, suddenly.

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to be confused.

“What?”

“Project Insight,” Steve says. “What is that?”

There’s a disconnect here, somewhere, but Bucky doesn’t know where. HYDRA had never told him everything, but they had told him enough. He had been given his missions, but the missions had context. He had never known the full details of Project Insight, but they had indoctrinated him into it, told him he was their asset to make it happen—utopia, a new world order.

But Steve’s expression remains terrifyingly blank.

“You don’t...know about Project Insight?” Bucky asks.

Steve says nothing.

Bucky’s dread increases.

“What are you here for, Steve?” Bucky says, slowly. “What are you here to do?”

There’s something not right here, Bucky thinks. There’s something he’s missing. He had come into this mirror, parallel universe and assumed everything was the same, except for those things that had been flipped. He had assumed HYDRA was the same group, with the same mission. He had assumed Alexander Pierce was in charge.

He had assumed they were after Project Insight, a project to target and eliminate people HYDRA thought was a threat to their world order. That’s what he knows. That’s what he knows _how to stop._

It’s only now, with Steve’s steely expression, that Bucky realizes, his blood chilled—maybe he’s wrong.

“My mission is to kill you,” Steve says, with a cold grin. “And then I’m going to kill the president.”

  
It makes sense, in its own way. When Bucky had killed Kennedy, it had led to a shift in power that had allowed HYDRA to rise through the ranks of the U.S. government, saturating it slowly over time. At the time, two decades after the Red Skull’s death, HYDRA was still reformulating itself, an almost felled force of evil that was slowly regenerating, laying low and creeping back through channels of power like poison crawling through a person’s veins.

That was fifty years ago. It would be different now, for HYDRA to kill the sitting president. It would mean something more, something worse. If the president and his people die, then HYDRA takes that power instead. And if today’s HYDRA takes that power, there’s nothing short of complete political revolution that will push them back out.

The chances of that, Bucky thinks, are slim to none.

So. Fuck.

Steve has the gun pressed in between Bucky’s eyes.

Double fuck.

He stares at Bucky, wild and cold and focused. Bucky thinks, even brainwashed, a terrible assassin for a terrible, evil organization, Steve is as beautiful as he’s ever been. The coldness makes him that much more so, the hardened edges of him giving him a terrifying, relentless kind of beauty, so that even facing his own possible death, all Bucky can think is _oh_.

“Whatever you do,” Bucky says softly. “Know that I forgive you.”

Steve’s eyes flash furiously, the line of his mouth growing dangerously thin. He shoves the barrel of the gun harder against Bucky’s forehead, unforgiving, hard enough to bruise.

He falters.

“Why?” he asks.

That’s a complicated question, Bucky thinks. There’s history and there are feelings and there’s the fact that Bucky knows Steve—has always known him, will always know him inside and out—no matter where they both end up.

It’s all of that, but none of it too.

The truth is, Bucky forgives Steve because Bucky knows what it’s like to hold the gun in his hand. He forgives Steve because he knows what it’s like to be scared. Because he knows what it’s like to be robbed of yourself.

Bucky forgives Steve because he loves him, but also because he _was_ him.

“Because,” Bucky says and closes his eyes. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”

In a way, he thinks, maybe it’s not only about Steve. Maybe, when Bucky says _I forgive you_ and when he thinks _I love you_ , what he’s really saying is: I forgive myself, and, maybe, it’s okay to love myself too.

Bucky takes a breath.

  
There’s silence as he waits for the shot.

It doesn’t come.

There’s noise as Steve retracts the barrel of the gun. He takes a step back and then another. Silently, he leaves the room out the window, the same way he came.

Bucky opens his eyes and watches him go. He takes Bucky’s weight with him.

*

“The president?” Sam asks, folding his arms across his chest.

“I’ve done it before,” Bucky says, face ashen. “You sit on a high enough building and you get one shot. If you’re good enough, that’s all you need.”

“But there must be guards,” Thor says. He reloads his gun and slides it into his holster. “To protect him.”

Bucky nods.

“You take them out,” he says. “And then it’s your kill.”

Sam lets out a shaky breath. He’s made of tougher mettle than to look sick, but he sure doesn’t look happy.

“You’re telling me what stands between presidential assassination and Nazis taking over the literal government is the three of us?”

Thor runs a hand over the bottom half of his face before remembering that he doesn’t have facial hair in this universe.

“The three of us, a pair of wings, and Nicholas Fury,” he says. He looks at Bucky. “Perhaps?”

“Depends,” Bucky says. “On...how good he is at figuring out cryptic messages. And if Maria Hill checks her texts.”

Sam groans.

Thor’s faced worse odds and won. He’s not too phased by this.

“Well,” he says, with interminably good nature and a hand to Sam’s shoulder. “At least we have the wings.”

“What are we going to do with them?” Sam asks. “Drop me on top of the President?”

“Would that work?” Thor asks Bucky.

Bucky gives him a thoughtful look.

“No,” he says. The other man runs his tongue over lips and cocks his head just so. “But, I have an idea where you _can_ drop us.”

  
The plan is this: scout the federal buildings with the tallest vantage points, use Sam’s wings to bypass security, and drop them on top. They sweep for bugs and HYDRA agents. They take down any unfriendly interlopers. They destroy the operation. Bucky finds Steve. He stops him no matter the cost.

First they have to break into the Smithsonian for uniforms. That part, somehow, hasn’t changed.

“It looks better on the Captain,” Thor says to Bucky as he fastens the helmet to his head.

Bucky flips him off, which makes Thor grin. It would almost feel like normal if Bucky and Sam were Fandral and Hogun and Volstagg and if their mission was to quell a goblin uprising on another planet. He supposes there’s some similarity here, although Midgardians prefer boring weapons and he doubts his companions will be amenable to drink before battle. More’s the pity.

“Is this going to work?” Sam asks, his wings folding into the base on his back.

“Look at it this way,” Bucky says. “If we win, we save the world. If we lose, the president dies and the world becomes a literal hellscape.”

Sam stares at him.

“Is that supposed to make me feel any better?”

“Nope,” Bucky says, popping the p. “All right, everyone have their plans?”

“Yep,” Sam says with a nod.

“Yes, Captain,” Thor says. He has a gun in each hand.

“Remember, if anything seemed fucked up, call for back up. If anything goes wrong, call for back up. Take out any opposition. You see Steve, you tell me.”

Thor and Sam nod at Bucky grimly and he steps back. Something buzzes in their vicinity and they each tense before Bucky blinks and pulls a small, black phone out of his pocket.

“Me first,” Thor says to Sam.

“You fly before?” Sam asks as Thor wraps his arms around Sam’s middle.

“Not on this side,” Thor says with a thin grin and then they’re jettisoning off the ground and into the sky.

  
Thor tumbles gracefully to his feet on the roof. He crouches, his hands at the guns strapped to his sides. Sam barely makes a sound as he leaves, but it doesn’t matter. The roof is large, with an obstruction from the building’s stair access in the middle. On this side of the wall, there’s only Thor and a few empty chairs. The other side is the important one, with a rooftop view that opens up onto the Northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Thor had used whatever skills the Institute had given him in this reality to hack into the President’s daily schedule. He was meant to leave the White House and go for a public speaking engagement at Georgetown University at 4:00 pm. This meant he and his motorcade would leave the White House by 3:00 pm and go down Pennsylvania Avenue heading West toward the campus. Bucky’s intuition was that it would be easiest to aim for him either en route or during his speaking engagement.

They get two chances at this. Sweep the rooftops to make sure no one takes out the motorcade now and break into Georgetown if HYDRA has not made their move on the motorcade and stop them there.

The whole thing is more espionage and caution than Thor usually prefers, but then his plans usually involve aiming Mjolnir at the nearest bad guy and throwing her at their head.

He misses her desperately.

He straightens and sweeps the area around him and, finding no guards, cautiously makes his way around the middle construction toward the other side.

From his vantage point, he can see two snipers aimed on the corners of the roof. He thinks they’re wearing what he recognizes as Secret Service uniforms, but he takes no chances. Thor takes out the fancy gun with the laser inset and with the buzzing turned to silent, shoots them both in the middle of the back.

Both guards let out a surprised groan and crumble into heaps on the ground.

“Sorry about that,” Thor says as he emerges from behind the stairwell. He crouches at the feet of the first guard and checks for a pulse and does the same to the second.

When he’s satisfied that they are alive, simply unconscious from a certain amount of pain, he stands back up.

That’s when he feels the blade against the back of his neck.

There’s only one person it could be. Thor isn’t ready to face him—not like this—but he has no choice and anyway, he’s never run away from him before and he doesn’t plan on starting now.

“Loki,” Thor says quietly and he feels the blade nick his skin.

Thor raises his hands slowly, wondering why this Loki hasn’t already gutted him. When he hears nothing from him, he turns around, inch by inch, until he’s facing his brother—his old friend, in this world—and finally fully takes him in.

He hadn’t gotten a good look at him on the highway, is the thing. They had just tumbled into this reality and Thor had immediately been locked into the middle of a tense firefight. It had gone through him like a frisson of recognition, the look in Loki’s blue-rimmed, green eyes—eyes Thor has had memorized since he was a child—but the entirety of him had been too overwhelmed to catalog more.

He does it now though, his eyes scraping over his brother—old friend—as he is in this reality, another supersoldier tortured into submission by cruel humans. Even here, Loki is cloaked in blacks and dark, forest greens, with dark pants tucked into high combat boots and a long, dark green jacket that’s fit to his narrow waist. His jacket has a loose hood that’s pulled all the way up over his head. His hands are covered in black, leather gloves. He has a black mask pulled across his mouth and nose. Above it, his eyes glitter that strange mixture again—a faint blue glow at the edges of them and a true, bright green in the center.

He looks outlandish here, an alien in mercenary’s clothing. He has a strange, curved sword in his hand that has a brutal edge and near the hilt, a glowing blue shard.

  
**art:** Loki as a Winter Soldier; **art by:** nalonzooo

Oh, Thor thinks.

Loki looks at him with cold, blank, unseeing eyes and Thor thinks, more sadly, _oh_.

“Do you know who I am?” Thor asks, softly.

Loki doesn’t lower the weapon, but he doesn’t reply either.

“We were brothers—friends,” Thor says. “At the Institute. Do you remember me, Loki?”

Loki’s eyes seem to bore into Thor, an intense light that makes Thor’s spine spark with heat. He tilts his head.

“We were children when you came,” Thor says. His hands are still raised. “Just an orphan from the streets of Oslo, lonely and terrible and brilliant. You were only a few years younger than me. I saw you and I knew on sight—that you would be my worst enemy and my greatest love. I would kill you and die to protect you. I saw you and knew. Do you remember?”

There’s a silence so thick it pricks Thor’s skin.

“I protected you,” Thor says. “I hurt you. We hurt one another. That was what they did to us. They made us both into weapons and turned us on each other. Just to test us—to see how far we would go. But that wasn’t all we did. They didn’t know. They never knew.”

Loki’s expression wavers.

“You would come to me, in the middle of the night,” Thor says. His voice is rough now. He thinks: if he has to live with his memories here _and_ his memories from home, it might break him altogether.

There’s a glint that comes into Loki’s eyes then, a kind of pure panic that is only allowed to exist for the seconds before it turns into something else.

“Stop,” Loki says.

“And I would let you. I would let you crawl into my bed, because I never hated you.”

“Shut up,” Loki’s voice rings out in warning, in anger.

“Because I loved you,” Thor says. “I loved you then and I love you still. I will always love you, Loki, in every way it is possible to.”

“ _Silence!_ ” Loki shrieks and within the blink of an eye he’s moving, slashing his Tesseract-powered sword through the air.

Thor moves out of the way just in time, his heart pounding as the air heats up as the blade runs through it. Thor can feel the heat on his skin and he reaches for his laser gun again, raises it, and shoots.

Loki hisses as he twists out of the way and Thor shouts and shoots again and then again and they dodge around each other on the roof—Thor shooting and Loki slashing. Thor tries to sweep Loki’s feet out from under him and Loki swiftly moves out of the way, pulling two daggers from his coat and hurtling them at Thor for the effort.

Thor pants as he bends backwards, one dagger missing him entirely and skittering off the roof while the other knicks his shoulder, slicing through his suit and embedding itself into the roof ledge behind him.

“Fuck!” Thor shouts and Loki uses that distraction to lunge at him again, another dagger in his left hand and the sword still in his right.

Thor dances backward, dodging another slash through the air, and grabs the hand holding onto the dagger so he can twist his wrist hard enough for Loki to drop the blade.

Loki screeches again and forcibly jumps back and Thor has to wipe his hand across his mouth and try to catch his breath.

It’s clear that this Loki has been brainwashed. It isn’t just the shard in his sword or the way he seems to balk at any memory—it’s the glow of his eyes and the tension set into his narrow shoulders. This Loki is efficient and he is brutal and he is, above all, absolutely terrifying.

He is all of the skill of Thor’s Loki, with none of his hesitation or conscience. He is what Loki could be, if Loki had no soul.

Thor will never know how much the shards of the Space Stone have tortured and twisted this Loki, but he knows it is enough.

This Loki is beyond all hope. He is beyond all help.

Loki raises a hand to his face and finding his mask knocked askew, rips it off.

There are scars crossing his mouth, little crosses that look like stitch marks. It takes Thor a moment to understand in horror. Oh Norns. They _are_ stitch marks, that have healed over.

Someone had done this to him, to his brother—had sewn up his mouth and then ripped the threads out.

Thor’s heart pulses in his chest, an anger spilling within him that is so hot it nearly sets him on fire.

Someone had done this to Loki and Loki had had no choice but to let them.

Sam’s question echoes in his ears: _even if it doesn’t, you’ll make a difference to this one. This Loki. If you care for him, isn’t that enough?_

Thor hadn’t known then, but he understands now.

He’s angry. He’s so fucking furious.

Thor hears Loki screaming, sword in his hand again, descending on him, and he sees Loki’s livid—hurt—angry— _hurt_ —terrible green eyes and realizes: yes, it is enough.

Thor raises one gun, levels it, and shoots Loki’s shoulder.

Loki lets out a shriek of pain and falters. Not enough to make him stumble, really. Just enough to slow him down, for his trajectory to be turned against him.

He uses his momentum to shove the metal blade into Thor’s side and Thor, gasping in pain, looks his old love in the eyes and grabs the glowing, blue hilt of the sword.

Loki’s eyes widen in surprise—maybe even fear—and Thor leans forward and kisses him.

*

“Eyes on the motorcade,” Sam’s voice comes over the mouthpiece in his ear. “Pulling out of the White House.”

“It’s quiet,” Bucky says into his. He learns the difference between pure supersoldier serum and knockoff supersoldier serum then: he is aware of his surroundings in a way that he never has been before, every movement catalogued, every sound amplified in his ears.

“Maybe they’ll move on Georgetown?” Sam says. He’s dropped Bucky off and flown to an adjacent building to do a sweep of the rooftop.

“Maybe,” Bucky says. It would be easier, he admits. A lot more chaos in an immediate sense, a live audience as opposed to a moving motorcade. But something doesn’t feel right about that.

There’s quiet over the line as both Bucky and Sam surveil the perimeter of their respective rooftops. There’s no one here. The President is leaving the White House and there’s no one up here.

“What would you do?” Sam asks, after a minute. “You said you were the Winter Soldier in your world, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He looks across the empty space of the roof and feels his unease increase.

“So, run that play. What would your move be?”

At one point, this would have been a triggering question. At another, it would have made Bucky feel horrible, his insides turning with guilt. Now, with so many years between him and that little Red Book, with aliens and Titans and the end of the everything he’s ever known, it’s just another question.

“If I was the Winter Soldier, my mission would be to serve HYDRA,” Bucky says, slowly. “As best as I could. Every mission in service of that greater purpose.”

“The purpose of...white supremacy?” Sam’s voice crackles over the line.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, disgusted. “And no. It’s more than that. What HYDRA wants is incontrovertible control. When I killed Kennedy, it was done as a spectacle. The louder you make it, the more scared people are. And the more scared people are, the easier they are to control.”

A pause.

“I’m sorry, you killed _who_?”

Bucky ignores that. There’s a shield strapped to his back and a rifle across his front. The thing is, Bucky might be Captain America in this world, but he was Captain America’s enemy in his own. All of this time, he’s thought of that as his great shame—his great weakness. Now, with some indiscernible clarity, he realizes it’s also his strength.

“They want this assassination to be as sensational as possible,” Bucky says, his voice more certain. “So that when that chaos happens—when that power vacuum opens up, they’ll filter in and fill it themselves. They’ve waited in the shadows long enough. They want to be the face of it now.” A pause. “This country has had a fear of terrorists for a long time, but they’ve never realized that the call is coming from inside the fucking house.”

Bucky knows he’s right. It’s an unmovable, unparalleled certainty, like a puzzle piece clicking perfectly into place.

“They’re going to move,” Bucky says. “And they’re going to do it now.”

Bucky’s eyes skate down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the line of black cars emerging from the White House.

“If what you’re saying is true—” Sam starts and he sounds horrified. “They’re not going to just take out one car are they? Not like with Kennedy.”

Bucky’s expression is bitter, although Sam can’t see it.

“No,” he says and this time when he scans the roof, he sees it—a guard on the roof across from him, wearing dark clothes, with some kind of rifle pointed toward the street. “They’re going to take out the entire fucking motorcade.”

The guard is there and then—Bucky can hear this too—he grunts. He crumples to the ground and in his place there’s someone else dressed in black tactical gear, enhanced gun raised, dark glasses shielding his eyes. His hood slides off his head and Bucky can see dark blond moving against his shoulders.

“Fuck,” Bucky says, stomach tightening.

“Bucky—” Sam’s voice comes and then, suddenly, “— _shit_!”

There’s a shout from Sam from whatever roof he’s securing and then all at once, everything explodes.

  
Steve raises his gun and shoots at Bucky, who yells and hurls himself out of the way. The blue jet blast hits the edge of the rooftop with a loud bang and the top of the ledge goes crumbling. Bucky lifts his own rifle and, ducking under a stretch of the ledge that hasn’t been damaged, he fits the gun above the stone lip, fits his eye to the scope, and starts firing back.

All around him, the air escalates with the sounds of battle. Gunfire and small explosions and screams and Sam somewhere in the distance and more shouting, voices that Bucky can’t identify. The ground seems to shake with it, the air rent with noise.

It sounds like pure, distilled chaos, like fear come to life.

The ledge explodes next to Bucky and he spits out a curse. He looks through the scope again, finger on the trigger, and shoots back. Somewhere below him, there’s the sound of loud screams and to the left, another loud blast as Steve’s fire cracks the roof’s ledge.

“Fuck,” Bucky swears. “ _Fuck!_ ”

Another shot and this time the stone crumbles and rains down onto Bucky’s head.

He’s not going to last here. He takes his rifle and rolls out of the way just as the stone ledge of the roof breaks, just where he was.

He has to get off this roof. Bucky curses and crawls toward the far side, trying to reach the next closest building, as more gun blasts rain chunks of debris down on him.

Sirens now, shrieking through the air below, to the side, all around them.

Just as Bucky reaches the other side, there’s suddenly the thunderous sound of helicopter propellers beating through the air.

“ _Cap!_ ” Bucky hears.

Bucky looks up in time to see—with quickly spilling, overwhelming relief—Maria Hill aiming what looks like a rocket launcher out of the window at—

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Bucky says, trying to scramble up. “Maria— _wait_!”

Maria doesn’t hear him. She locks on her target and fires.

“Fuck— _fuck_ —!” Bucky swears again. His heart rate spikes as he runs across the remainder of the rooftop and onto the next building.

He rolls onto his feet and looks up just in time to see Steve jump away from the explosion onto the rooftop next to him. He abandons his handgun for something at his back that is long and black and has a blue core.

Bucky sucks in a breath. Jesus _fuck_.

“Hill!” he shouts over the cacophony. “Hill, swerve!”

Maria’s eyes widen and the helicopter pilot turns the steering, but it’s too little too late. The blue laser blasts through the propeller and the helicopter veers off to the left, crashing into a building as Maria and the pilot jump.

“Motherfucking—” Bucky starts and then he realizes, a beat too late, that he’s had his eyes off Steve for too long.

When he looks up, the rooftop across from him is empty.

He has a five second warning as Steve jumps across the space onto his own roof before Steve straightens on his feet, Tesseract-launcher aimed at Bucky’s chest.

  
When Bucky was the Winter Soldier, he hadn’t had a choice.

It wasn’t his choice to survive the fall from the train. It wasn’t his choice to have his arm amputated, modified with something that was the prosthetic equivalent of an AK-47. It wasn’t his choice to be tortured, to be brainwashed, to resurface only to be pushed back under.

For nearly a century, Bucky had his choice taken from him.

So when HYDRA had put an assault rifle in his hands and told him he needed to kill the President of the United States, he hadn’t had a choice. He thinks, by then, he had given up trying to fight for one. They told him what he needed to do and he did it. It was easier that way, in a sense, even if he did have some measure of culpability—which he didn’t.

Bucky doesn’t remember that day in Dallas as clearly as others, but he does remember sitting on a rooftop, waiting. He remembers looking out through the scope of his rifle, aiming. He doesn’t remember pulling the trigger, but he remembers the sounds of his shot hitting its mark.

Bucky hadn’t watched closely, but he wasn’t so empty that he hadn’t felt the shock and chaos erupt around him.

He’s sat with this guilt for a long time. He’s killed people in much more personal, intimate settings. He took Howard and Maria Stark’s lives with his hands and when he thinks about it, he has to forcibly dissociate—for what he did to them, for what it had meant for Tony. But there’s a difference between taking the life of someone whose death causes wide, but small ripples, and taking the shot that changes absolutely everything in the future.

Bucky has blood on his hands—some that will never wash out. He had changed the course of history in a way that is beyond any real human reckoning.

He knows what it’s like to live with that. He won’t let Steve do the same.

“I can’t let you do this, Steve,” Bucky says, his voice ringing out across the ruckus. “I won’t let them do this to you too.”

Steve’s glasses have been knocked off his face. He stands across from Bucky, his black uniform ripped in places, the smell of smoke clearly in his hair and his skin. His eyes are clear now and there’s anger there—hurt and confusion and a fury so acute, so deep, that it makes Bucky catch his breath. His mouth is turned down at the corners. His hair, long and dirty, rests against the skin of his neck, darkened with dirt and soot.

“I told you before,” Steve says, his voice like shards of glass. “These are my missions. To kill him and to kill you.”

“You can say no,” Bucky says. “Say no and come away with me. Don’t let them own you anymore.”

“They don’t own me,” Steve spits. “And neither do you.”

Bucky tries not to sway on his feet.

It’s just the two of them up here and chaos all around them.

“Who am I?” Bucky asks Steve. “You remember. Tell me who I am.”

This makes Steve glare—leer really. His fingers around his weapon, a raw, livid expression on his face.

Something else too, though. Something hidden so well, you would miss it if you didn’t know to look.

But Bucky has been Steve and so he knows what to see. He takes the thread and pulls.

“The man on the bridge,” Bucky says to Steve. “You knew him. Tell me who I am.”

Steve’s mouth twists. He looks angry—so fucking angry. He’s at war with himself.

Bucky takes a step forward and then stops when Steve immediately shifts his weapon.

Steve’s breathing comes out shallow. This, too, Bucky can hear.

There’s more screams from on the street and another rocket that blasts into another rooftop. Bucky winces, his heart racing, but Steve looks only at him.

He looks and he glares and then—he answers.

“James—Buchanan Barnes,” Steve says. He talks as though the words are foreign to him. He speaks as though he is uncertain. “I called you...Bucky.”

Bucky sucks in a breath. He’s so relieved he could cry. Was this how Steve had felt, all of those years ago? Had Steve also looked at him and thought: this is the person I will save, even if he doesn’t think he needs saving himself?

He understands it better now. God, he understands all of it—fighting with the Avengers, making an enemy of the State, becoming a fugitive, throwing his reputation and his entire life away for him—better.

Bucky would do it too. Bucky would do anything for the person in front of him.

That’s the kind of story they have.

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Bucky says quietly, his chest aching. “You were my best friend.”

Steve’s expression softens. It’s not an easy thing to do, but Bucky sees it when it happens. His shoulders lower, just a little, his grip growing soft on his gun.

“Come back to me,” Bucky says and takes another step forward. “Come home with me, Steve.”

A beat.

He doesn’t know what does it. He doesn’t know which words trigger him. Maybe he’ll never know.

Maybe it’s something that isn’t able to be explained, just as their lives aren’t able to be explained, just as there’s no explanation for why they keep missing each other—time and time again.

The easy expression disappears.

Steve lifts the weapon, screams, and shoots.

  
Bucky launches himself at Steve, going straight for his knees. They’re close to the roof’s edge, too close for comfort, so close that an inch will send them both plummeting to their deaths.

Steve shouts again and tries to get off another shot, but Bucky elbows his solar plexus and grasps the gun as hard as he can and throws it to the side. It skitters across the roof, landing inches before the edge.

They grapple together, rolling over and over across the gravel, Bucky yelling and Steve shrieking and both of them landing elbows to hard surfaces and knees into groins and a hand on a throat until they’re shaking off and rolling again.

Steve knocks his fist into Bucky’s nose and Bucky gasps in pain as he knees Steve in the ribs. They both shout and roll again, the gravel digging into any bare skin, Bucky starting to bleed from cuts across his neck and jaw, bruises blooming across Steve’s fair skin.

“It’s me!” Bucky gasps out as Steve gets a hand on his throat and tries to choke him. “Fuck—let go!”

Bucky kicks Steve’s knees out under him and tries to roll away, but Steve finds a dagger in his uniform and tries to drive it into the spot where Bucky’s head had been a second after Bucky moves it.

Bucky grabs the dagger and tries to drive it into Steve’s side and Steve grunts and twists, leaving the blade only to slice shallowly across his uniform.

They roll again.

  
They are matched perfectly, as ever, parallels even in this. They batter each other as best as they can, until they’re both panting in pain, face swollen, bruised and sore and bleeding.

Bucky on his knees across from Steve and Steve clutching his side. Bucky with his hands on Steve’s abandoned weapon and Steve staring at him, expression clear with hurt, vivid with hatred.

With something else too, just underneath. There, where only Bucky knows to look.

Resignation. Or maybe—relief.

This is stupid, Bucky thinks.

This is pointless.

He remembers Steve looking at him with this same acceptance, this same exhaustion. He remembers Steve stopping. He remembers Steve dropping his shield into the Potomac. Willing to lay down his life just to end this fight.

Bucky hadn’t understood it at the time. He had been so tortured, so brainwashed, so singularly focused, it hadn’t _made sense_.

It hadn’t made sense in any of the years that had followed either.

He hadn’t been thinking about it properly.

It makes sense now.

God, it’s the only thing that does.

Shaking with exhaustion, Bucky drops the gun. Steve’s angry eyes widen.

“I’m not going to fight you,” Bucky says, quietly. “You’re my friend.”

Bucky understands now. It isn’t about losing and it isn’t about winning. It’s about laying down your arms when the alternative is worse. When any other action is unfathomable.

He’s always wondered why Steve hadn’t just killed him that day, when he was the Winter Soldier, angry and brainwashed and unrelenting, his hands around Steve’s throat.

The answer is astonishingly simple: Steve could never kill Bucky, even if he tried.

And so he is unsurprised to find that the truth is also this: Bucky could never kill Steve, either. Not Steve like this and not Steve like that. Even when he had been the Winter Soldier, he hadn’t been able to do it.

In all of the universes they have been and all of the universes they will be, Bucky Barnes will never be able to kill Steve Rogers.

“I have to kill you,” Steve grunts out. But he doesn’t sound certain aymore. “It’s the right thing to do. That’s what they told me—it’s right. I have to do what’s right.”

Bucky’s chest hurts. Steve has only ever done what he’s felt to be right. It only makes sense that it would be the same here. Even as the Commander—his own version of the Winter Soldier, Steve will only do what he feels to be right.

So he gives Steve a brittle, sad smile.

“Then do it,” Bucky says. “If killing me is right, then you have to do it.”

He hesitates. Steve watches him and hesitates.

It’s almost enough.

Bucky has his fists up just before Steve is on him, screaming and angry, punching down on him, blow-after-blow-after-blow, on Bucky’s stomach and his sides, his arms, his face, his jaw.

Bucky falls back, nearly immobile with pain, and Steve is crouching over him, his eyes wide and angry—livid, scared.

“This isn’t your fault, Steve,” Bucky coughs out, bleeding from the corner of his mouth. He’s in so much pain his head is barely working. Everything feels swollen, his body completely battered. “They did this to you. They did this to me.”

“Shut up!” Steve screeches and Bucky feels metal fingers close around his throat. Bucky gurgles a little, his airway constricted.

“I—forgive—you,” Bucky says.

Steve’s fingers slow. He stares at him, panicked and confused.

“I told you. I forgive you,” Bucky rasps again. He tries to smile. It’s thin, almost gone. “I forgive, Steve. Both of us. It wasn’t. Our fault.”

Steve shakes his head. He inhales sharply and hisses and shakes his head.

His expression, splintering. The look in his eyes, anger giving way to something vast and unending, like a child lost at sea.

He lets out a low sound, like a punch to the gut—guttural and hurt and full of decades of agony.

“Bucky,” Steve says, his voice cracking.

**art:** "Bucky," Steve says, his voice cracking; **art by:** nikkialonzooo

His fingers fall away.

It’s the last thing Bucky hears before he blacks out.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof.


	13. Chapter Thirteen. [ fifth oddity: medical ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That’s why it’s in your best interest not to keel over, _doctor_ ,” Clint says. “Why are you still here anyway?”
> 
> “There’s a thing,” Bucky says, mouth full of protein bar. It kind of tastes like if cardboard gave birth to chocolate. It’s dry and disgusting. He swallows gratefully. “Called capitalism. And under the bounds of capitalism, we have to do what’s called earn money in order to survive. And in order to earn money, I’ve sold my soul to the hospital and have to be here 425 hours a day 3,671 days a year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY MONDAY and also happy early Thanksgiving for those in the U.S.!! Here is an appetizer of stucky + thorki food before you stuff yourselves with 1200 delicious sides this week.
> 
> Welcome to the **Fifth Oddity:** Medical AU. This one is a hell of a lot of fun. :)
> 
>  **DISCLAIMER:** I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL. My chosen field of existence is as far from the medical field as you can be. Sort of. This Oddity brought to you by knowledge obtained through my physician brother, a WhatsApp group full of friends who are doctors and were forced to answer questions while I refused to give any sort of context, and the two seasons of Scrubs I mainlined in three days before I started writing. IF THERE IS ANYTHING IN THIS ODDITY THAT IS INACCURATE TO THE MEDICAL FIELD (read: all of it), please take your complaints to Dr. John Dorian and Dr. Christopher Turk, MD. Thank you.

There’s a beeping coming distantly, as though from far away, an annoying pulsing sound that pushes through a fog so thick it takes until there’s someone shaking him for him to realize that he’s fallen asleep.

“Barnes,” the voice says and he feels the hand on his shoulder shake him a bit more urgently. “If you don’t answer that, I’m going to throw it in the trash can.”

Bucky groans. His head feels thick, his eyes so heavy he can barely gather the energy to pry them open. It feels as though he had blacked out, his brain full of cotton and his mouth dry as sandpaper.

There’s blessed silence for all of fifteen seconds before another flurry of distant beeping goes off—less distant this time.

“You’re going to be so annoyed if someone dies because you couldn’t wake up,” the voice says again. “And if that happens, don’t come crying to _me_.”

That revives Bucky some. After what could be considered momentous effort, he’s able to open his eyes. His head aches sharply as he takes in his surroundings, his brain spinning slightly as it tries to reconcile what he sees now with the dispersing memories of where he had just been. It takes a minute to shake off the heart-racing adrenaline of the last reality, the pain of the blows he thinks he can still feel on his body, Steve’s terrified, haunted eyes above him, his voice breaking as he says—

Bucky swallows thickly. He hopes he’s okay, that Steve. He hopes that the Bucky in that world can save him, the way Steve had saved Bucky in their own.

Bucky’s stomach feels the lingering effects of being sucked through the multiverse and as he finally pushes himself away from the table he evidently had fallen asleep on, it gives a bit of a lurch.

He tries to swallow his nausea.

“You look like shit,” the voice says, slightly more empathetic this time.

Bucky looks up at him and blinks in surprise.

“How long this time?” Loki asks. He finally withdraws his hand from Bucky’s shoulder and slides out a chair across from him and settles down onto it.

“How long?” Bucky asks, his voice raspy from interrupted sleep.

“Have you been working?” Loki says. He lifts a paper cup to his mouth, a dark eyebrow raised. Bucky knows instinctively that the reason it’s steaming is because there’s coffee in there and for a moment, he is desperately, horribly jealous.

He scrubs his hands down his tired face and tries to shake the images of Steve as the Winter Soldier from his head.

“Uh,” he says. “When I started working it was Wednesday.”

Loki lets out a disapproving tsk.

“Are you supposed to be working across three days?” he asks. “I thought Fury said you couldn’t do that anymore.”

“Fury’s not the boss of me,” Bucky mutters.

“Fury is literally the boss of all of us,” Loki says. He takes a mouthful of coffee and lowers the cup again.

“If he wants to tell everyone who’s coming in with gunshot wounds and renal failure that they should wait 24 hours until Dr. Carter can relieve me of my duty, he can feel free to,” Bucky says.

He doesn’t really know where any of this knowledge comes from, but if the deck of medical procedures and tests that are running through his head are anything to go by, he is now skilled in ways HYDRA certainly had never taught him during his own lifetime. At this point, there is little the multiverse could throw into his head that would truly surprise him. So if he wakes up from getting nearly throttled by his best-friend-turned-HYDRA-assassin to over a decades’ worth of medical knowledge in his brain, then he’s going to shake off interdimensional nausea, answer his beeper, and go to re-intubate Mr. Collins in Room 204 without batting an eye.

“How many of those cases could you possibly have?” Loki asks and takes another sip of his coffee.

“It’s the ER, Loki,” Bucky says. “Two gunshot victims and three organ failures is a light night.”

“Don’t forget about all of the stomachs you have to pump,” Loki says, cheerfully.

“Fucking frat bros,” Bucky mutters and groans as his beeper goes off again.

“You better get that,” Loki says. He adjusts his own scrubs and leans back in his chair until it’s tipped back onto only two legs.

“Switch places?” Bucky asks, hopefully.

“Not a fucking chance,” Loki says, with his signature shit eating grin. It’s somewhere in between delighting in his friend’s misery and outright cackling about it. Loki is one of the hospital’s best nurses, but he is a complete, unrepentant bastard. Just Bucky’s luck.

“I hate you,” Bucky says. “You didn’t even offer me coffee.”

“I know,” Loki says, seeming pleased. He makes direct eye contact with Bucky and drains the rest of his cup.

Bucky flips him off and then hears the intercom go off, “ _Doctor Barnes. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to do your job, you are needed in Room 204._ ”

Bucky pauses, his eyebrows furrowing.

From his seat, Loki cackles.

“Rogers,” he says and puts his cup down on the desk. “I love it when he’s on shift.”

Bucky doesn’t have time to question him. He leaves the break room and heads toward Room 204 before he can get publicly reprimanded again.

  
It’s Thursday evening in the ER, which isn’t nearly as busy as Friday nights or even Saturdays, but Bucky does the rounds on patients who have been waiting to see a doctor while sitting with ailments ranging from migraines to appendicitis to at least two dislocated shoulders, one shattered ankle, one patient with kidney failure, and two people who had accidentally lost objects up their nose and only one of whom was under the age of 10.

By the time Bucky’s done visiting his patients—including helping re-intubate Mr. Collins in Room 204—he has a light migraine of his own, there’s a sharp pain in the center of his back, and if he doesn’t get coffee soon, he might throw himself into one of the empty rooms and ask Loki to feed it to him intravenously.

He’s pleased and astounded and bemused at all of the medical knowledge rattling around in his head, but he doesn’t really have time to question his competency or how in his own world, the only medical knowledge he had ever really had began and ended with him staunching bleeding from bullet wounds on his own body with any semi-clean strip of clothing he could find.

“You look like shit,” someone says to him as he takes off his disposable gloves and throws them into the nearest trash can.

Bucky had emerged from Room 220, where a sweet 80 year old woman by the name of Mrs. Gupta had been admitted after complaining about chest pains. They had acted immediately and run tests, but luckily there was no indication that she was suffering a heart attack. Still, she was 80, so they were keeping her for observation while they tried to figure out if it was more than just bad indigestion.

“Have you been talking to Loki?” Bucky asks, squinting at the blond man with the semi-vacuous look on his face.

“Yeah,” Clint says and blows a bubble with his pink bubblegum before popping it and sucking it back into his mouth. “Also we have a WhatsApp group where all we do is shittalk all of the doctors.”

“Rude as hell,” Bucky says and tiredly leans against the counter at the nurse’s station. “I’m perfect.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Clint says, with a bright, fake smile. “When I said we shittalk all of the doctors, I meant all of the doctors _except you._ ”

Bucky flips Clint off and the nurse cackles. Clint takes Mrs. Gupta’s file from Bucky and gets up to store it with the active patient files.

“On a scale of 1 to 10…” Bucky asks. “How bad?”

“Well you don’t look like you have blood poisoning, if that’s what you’re asking,” Clint says.

Bucky blinks.

“Is…that what I was asking?”

“Sure,” Clint says. He puts the file away and grabs something from another desk. “Here. Before you keel over and die and Loki has to perform a medical procedure on you.”

Bucky takes the protein bar gratefully and begins to unwrap it.

“Loki would stick a scalpel in my lung and call it a day,” he says.

“That’s why it’s in your best interest not to keel over, _doctor_ ,” Clint says. “Why are you still here anyway?”

“There’s a thing,” Bucky says, mouth full of protein bar. It kind of tastes like if cardboard gave birth to chocolate. It’s dry and disgusting. He swallows gratefully. “Called capitalism. And under the bounds of capitalism, we have to do what’s called earn money in order to survive. And in order to earn money, I’ve sold my soul to the hospital and have to be here 425 hours a day 3,671 days a year.”

“Math-wise, I’m dubious, but they didn’t teach us numbers in nursing school, so I’ll believe you,” Clint says. He unscrews the cap of his water bottle and takes a few mouthfuls. “But seriously, you’ve been here more than 24 hours, Barnes, go home.”

“I can quit anytime I want,” Bucky says and takes another enormous bite of cardboard protein.

“You know going home at the end of your shift isn’t quitting, right?” Clint asks, blinking at him. “Like. Definitionally. I need to know you know that.”

“I wasn’t aware Barnes knew anything,” Loki says. He walks up behind Bucky and passes him to go into the nurse’s station.

Clint is still standing by his computer in his scrubs, chugging his water. At a different computer at the other end of the station is some nurse with long, dark hair that Bucky isn’t familiar with. In between them, there are a few more unmanned computers. Loki dumps a handful of clipboards in the empty desk space beside one of these.

“That’s Dr. Barnes to you,” Bucky says.

“I’m sorry,” Loki says and turns back to Clint. “I wasn’t aware _Dr._ Barnes knew anything.”

Bucky rolls his eyes while Clint snorts and finishes his water.

“I’m telling him to go home, but he doesn’t remember how,” Clint says. “Then he said the c word and I stopped listening.”

Bucky colors a little and opens his mouth to correct Clint before Loki gets the wrong idea, but Loki just collapses onto his rolling chair with a look of boredom on his face.

“Who told him about that free online university course?” Loki complains. “I can’t listen to one more lecture on the evils of the free market.”

Clint lifts both of his hands up to indicate it wasn’t _him_ and Bucky sighs. He wonders, as usual, where Thor’s ended up this time and whether he’s also being harassed by former Avengers and their former sworn antagonists.

“All I’m saying is that I am contractually obligated by Adam Smith himself to be here 27 hours a day,” Bucky says. He sighs and finishes the protein bar before crumpling the wrapper into a ball and trying to throw it into the trash can behind Clint.

The aim is almost perfect, but the wrapper ricochets off the rim and flops onto the ground.

No, it flops onto someone’s foot, crumbs and all.

“Whoops,” Bucky says, sheepishly.

The person pauses, staring at their feet and the protein bar crumbs that are now speckling their pristine white sneakers.

“I’m sorr—” Bucky starts and immediately stops.

Steve, all 5 foot 5 inches of him, dressed in loose pink scrubs, with a stethoscope around his neck and a little zebra pin on his front pocket, gives him such a foul glare that Bucky almost mistakes the jump in his chest for fear rather than excitement.

  
**art:** Nurse Steve in his pink scrubs and a scowl on his face; **art by:** nalonzooo

“Steve!” Bucky exclaims brightly.

The glare narrows.

“Are you kidding me?” Steve says, waspishly.

“I’m sorry?” Bucky offers again, but he’s too happy to see Steve—this Steve, not a brainwashed, confused, hurt Steve—to be particularly contrite.

“Unbelievable,” Steve mutters and scoops up the wrapper and dumps it in the trash can. He shakes the crumbs off his shoes and then puts the patient chart he’s been carrying on top of an empty chair before grabbing a paper towel.

“Hey, sorry,” Bucky says again, actually feeling bad this time, and tries to move behind the counter to help him clean up the mess. “Let me—”

“Oh, just stay where you are,” Steve snaps at him. “You’ve already done enough, I don’t need you to pretend to actually be helpful.”

Bucky freezes where he is, feeling unsure and wrong-footed. He looks up at Clint and Loki, giving them a confused look.

Next to him, Clint gives him a sympathetic look. Loki grins and pantomimes eating popcorn.

“I know you’re too beloved to suffer consequences for any of your actions, but this isn’t actually your home,” Steve says as he straightens. He dumps the paper towel with the crumbs in the trash can too. “Do whatever you want there, but if you could try to at least respect the nurse’s station, _Doctor_ , we would be _ever_ so grateful.”

Bucky stares at Steve in bewildered astonishment, his mouth hanging slightly askew, but Steve barely pays him another second’s attention. He settles him with one more glare before turning his back on Bucky and beginning to change details on the enormous dry erase board with patient room and assignments behind the nurse’s station.

From his computer, Loki grins at the uncomfortable tension and gets up to stretch.

“As much as I would love to stay to see how Barnes and Rogers can make everyone around them miserable once again, I’m needed in surgery.”

Bucky, who’s still staring at Steve, his brain trying to process what in God’s name is happening _this_ time, barely notices as Loki slips past him, tapping the bottom of Bucky’s jaw to close his mouth.

“Careful,” he says cheerfully. “Something will fly in there and Rogers will let you choke on it. Don’t have too much fun, you crazy kids!”

Bucky does snap his mouth shut and after Loki’s gone, Clint picks up a few patient files and makes to follow.

“What did I do?” Bucky hisses as he follows Clint away from the station.

“To Steve?” Clint says.

“Yes to Steve!” Bucky hisses again. He follows after Clint as they walk down the hall out of the emergency room and toward the double doors that lead to the intensive care unit.

“Well don’t look at me,” Clint says as he adjusts the files in his arms and opens the doors. He gives Bucky a borderline exasperated look, which is really unsettling to receive from _Clint Barton_. “You two are the ones who hate each other.”

Bucky blinks.

“We hate each other?”

Clint gives him a strange look.

“You really need to go home,” he says, patting Bucky sympathetically on the shoulder. “You’re starting to sound crazy.”

Bucky’s head spins lightly in confusion and he’s left blinking rapidly—with no little exhaustion—as the door closes behind Clint and his beeper goes off once more.

*

“Dr. Odinson,” a voice says, urgently. “Is everything all right?”

Thor resurfaces in this body with a gasp. His stomach lurches violently and his head spins rapidly, the room seeming to tilt around him, as though the essence of him had been extracted from one place only to be suddenly slammed back into his own body with no consent on his part.

He sucks in a breath and tries to hold himself steady on his feet. Blinking quickly and trying to reorient himself, he only realizes that everyone is looking at him when a woman with dark skin and piercing eyes steps up next to him with a sharp crease between her brows. She has on a light green mask that covers most of her face, a cap that covers her hair, teal colored scrubs, and disposable rubber gloves. She has sharp, metal tools in both hands.

“Is something the matter?” she asks again, more urgently this time.

“I—” Thor tries to say and that’s when the rest of the details filter into his consciousness.

That is to say, he notices the two other doctors in the theater with him and the body in front of them on the operating table, mostly covered except for a square of flesh that is...open. It is open and bright red and Thor’s stomach lurches again, only this time it’s because he realizes that his own gloves are covered in blood and everyone is staring at him not because he’s silent, but because they’re waiting for him.

In the middle of performing surgery is not the proper time to panic. Thor has only been a surgeon for 75 seconds, but even he understands this. He takes a shaky breath and tries to scrub through his brain for any information this multiverse is willing to give him—who he is, who these people are, why he has metal tools in his hand and blood on his gloves and what he’s supposed to do with them and how he’s supposed to do it and why everyone keeps looking at him and—

“Breathe,” the woman says again.

Thor, mid-panic, latches onto the word desperately.

“You have done three colorectal resections this month alone,” she says. Thor can’t see her smile, but he thinks he can sense that she offers it beneath her mask. “Treat this one the same as the others.”

His head swims, but he nods. He takes a deep breath.

It makes him feel better, slightly more grounded. It also gives his brain a moment to rattle the correct information into place.

She’s right. He _has_ done this at least three times this month. He knows the procedure and, what’s more, he knows that he’s _good_ at it.

“You’re right,” he says, with a more solid nod. “I apologize, I had a moment of uncertainty.”

“It’s good to know that you are human too,” the woman says. “Although perhaps next time you can time your existential crisis for when we are not in the middle of surgery.”

Thor chuckles and breathes out, feeling steadier.

“I will be more forward-thinking next time, thank you Dr. Okoye.”

Okoye moves back to where she had been previously standing and Thor nods.

“All right,” he says. “Make the incision here.”

They continue with the surgery.

  
The surgery takes somewhere between two to three hours. It’s tense at first—nervy until Thor something clicks into place in his head and then he’s hyperfocused on this procedure he has never personally done himself, but some version of him has done multiple times.

It’s strange in a way that he will never be able to verbalize, to be able to do this terribly specialized thing with focus and ease, while knowing that he has never been able to do it before and has never _done_ it before. Still, everything is where it should be in his brain and he works with precision and confidence, one thing moving into the other, and by the time they’re finished with the procedure and close the incision, he’s exhausted but happy.

It’s a success.

He steps back from the table along with Dr. Okoye as the scrub nurse puts away their used tools and another nurse works to clean up the patient and ready him to be transported to recovery.

Dr. Okoye nods toward the door and Thor nods back, gratefully following her out of the operating room to get cleaned up.

“I have never seen you choke up like that before,” Okoye says as they peel off their bloodied gloves and dispose of them carefully before beginning to soap up their hands in the sink.

“Oh you know how it goes,” Thor says, hedging. “You begin thinking of one thing and then you are thinking of every terrible possibility and soon you are left without a single functioning thought.”

Okoye chuckles and shakes her head. She finishes washing her hands thoroughly and reaches for a paper towel to dry.

“The best time for invasive thoughts is when you are performing invasive surgery, isn’t it?” she says.

“This is why I’m not a brain surgeon,” Thor says.

“Invasive thoughts before invading someone’s brain…” Okoye muses out loud. “We should ask Dr. Strange about that.”

“No thank you,” Thor says. He also reaches for the paper towel. After they’re dried, they peel off their surgical masks and dispose of them.

“Ah yes,” Okoye says, with a small grin. “I had forgotten about your rivalry.”

“It isn’t a rivalry, Dr. Okoye,” Thor says. He gives her a churlish smile. “You see, I simply do not like him.”

That makes Okoye laugh. Thor’s about to ask her something when something catches his eye through the window.

He frowns, his heart speeding up, and turns fully toward the operating theater, where the operating nurse is still taking care of the patient post-op.

  
It’s the tall nurse he had barely noticed earlier, but he notices him now—with the lean lines of his straight back and dark hair that’s pulled back at his neck. He’s scrubbed up, with the cap and the mask that covers most of his face, but Thor doesn’t need to see all of it to recognize those green eyes.

“That nurse,” Thor breathes out loud to Okoye. “Is he new?”

Okoye looks through the glass to the nurse he’s talking about.

“Nurse Laufeyson?” she says and gives Thor a strange look. “No, he has worked here for at least a year, maybe more. He has been in the operating room with us on more than one occasion. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Oh,” Thor says dumbly. “Yes, of course. Nurse Laufeyson. I knew that.”

Okoye makes a sympathetic sound and pats Thor on the shoulder.

“You have been working too much, friend,” she says. “If you do not take a break soon, I will tell Dr. Danvers.”

Carol Danvers is the head of surgery here, Thor’s brain tells him, a terrifyingly competent and outrageously brilliant surgeon who also is nearly militant about her surgeons taking care of themselves. It makes for a great place to work, except when she gets pissed that someone isn’t taking care of themselves. Usually that someone is Thor.

“I have the next two days off!” Thor says, raising both of his hands. “I promise!”

Okoye gives him a suspicious look but then nods.

“I have another procedure in a few hours, so I’m going to get dinner while I can. I’ll see you later, Thor.”

Thor nods to Okoye as she takes leave of him and then turns back to the operating theater. The other scrub nurse is still cleaning up the equipment while Loki is making sure the patient is all right. The two nurses talk a little and although Thor can’t hear what they’re saying, he thinks he hears Loki laugh.

He watches them until another nurse comes into the room and with Loki, they wheel the patient out of surgery and into recovery.

  
Thor gathers the patient’s files in order to do his operative report. Most surgeons use voice transcription to help detail every aspect of the surgery in their required report, but there’s something about handwriting the full extent of the procedure that he finds affirming and soothing.

He grabs a cold turkey sub from the vending machine in the common room and pours himself a cup of coffee before settling down at one of the empty tables with his notepad, files, and notes.

He unwraps the sub and takes a large bite, munching on it as he picks up a pen and begins to scrawl all of the details on the yellow legal pad. This is undoubtedly slower and only Thor can read his own handwriting to type up the report, but he likes to take the time after surgery to do it anyway, as though only by taking his time raking through the details in his brain can he really process and come down from the high that follows a successful operation. It’s serves a twofold purpose now, giving Thor a chance to examine his newfound surgeon brain and what else he might know in this reality.

The room is mostly quiet at this hour, with a television playing on low volume in the corner where an attending physician that Thor doesn’t recognize is half-watching a cooking show and trying not to fall asleep on the couch. There’s another nurse who’s actively taking a nap with her head on the table and earbuds in and a hospitalist with red hair who’s eating a TV dinner while scrolling through her phone in the opposite corner of the room.

Thor checks his phone and finds that it’s just past 9:00 pm, which means that the hospital in general is calming down for the night, with visitors being asked to leave and most doctors either checking on their patients or taking a moment to eat dinner in the cafeteria.

It’s the perfect time for Thor to unwind here and he works silently for the next half an hour and makes good progress on his report. He finishes the rest of his sandwich and downs the entire cup of coffee when someone pulls out a chair across from him.

Thor frowns, pen poised mid-sentence as he hears the chair legs scraping against the floor. He looks up, a little dazed from his thoughts, and is surprised to find a smile on the face across from him.

“I know the hospital has recently undergone budget cuts, but I’m fairly certain they’d give their favorite surgeon a laptop if he asked,” Loki says, his hand on the back of the chair.

Thor can’t help it. Something warm and comforting blooms in his chest and he’s hard pressed to keep his own smile from fluttering onto his face.

“Oh I wouldn’t call myself their _favorite_ surgeon,” he says.

“Modesty doesn’t suit you, Dr. Odinson,” Loki says and his smile takes on a more playful edge. “Do you mind if I—?”

“Yes, please,” Thor says and tries to gather some of his papers.

Loki sits down across from him with a packaged chocolate chip cookie and a paper cup of coffee.

“Don’t tell me that’s your dinner,” Thor says, concerned.

“It’s oatmeal chocolate chip,” Loki says, as though this is a sufficient explanation. When Thor just raises an eyebrow at him, he unwraps the cookie and takes a bite defiantly. “Oats are protein! This is practically a steak.”

“You’re a very skilled nurse, so I assume I won’t have to tell you the key differences between an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie and a steak,” Thor says.

“There’s no difference,” Loki says through a mouthful of cookie. “Like I said, they’re both protein. My logic is unimpeachable. Irrefutable. I was top of my class in nursing school.”

Thor, already exasperated, covers his face with his hands and groans, which just makes Loki laugh out loud.

He peeks at him between his fingers and Loki’s looking at him with an expression that is both pleased and amused, crumbs at the corner of his mouth.

“I bet you were, though,” Thor says and lets his hands fall away. “You were—very helpful in there. Extremely calm under pressure.”

“Unlike yourself, you mean?” Loki grins at him.

Thor colors a bit, which makes Loki’s expression soften.

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” he says. “I’ve been in multiple surgeries with you and this is the first time I’ve ever seen you freeze.”

“Probably shouldn’t put that in my operative report,” Thor says.

“I mean you could,” Loki says, thoughtfully. He takes a mouthful of coffee and grins. “But then Romanoff would have to kill you.”

“Romanoff—” Thor starts to say, brows furrowing, but then he remembers. _Oh_ , yes of course. Natasha Romanoff, the hospital’s general counsel. Somehow that makes an absurd amount of sense and Thor files it away to tell Bucky later, whenever he shows up again.

“Remember when Fandral left something in his patient and she read him so thoroughly he had to take an unpaid vacation?” Loki grins. He makes air quotes, “For his mental health.”

Thor makes a face.

“He was really scared, Nurse Laufeyson,” he says, leaning toward the nurse. “He _cried_.”

Loki cackles a little and lifts his cup to his mouth.

“I know,” he says. “Top ten hospital moments. Romanoff is exceptional when she isn’t threatening _me_.”

“Have you given her reason to threaten you?” Thor asks.

“Of course not,” Loki says with a lofty look. “Like I said, I was top of my nursing school class.”

Thor shakes his head in amusement and gathers his own empty cup and wrapper to throw into the trash can.

“How much longer is your shift tonight?” he asks.

Loki shrugs and stuffs the rest of his cookie in his mouth.

“Only halfway through,” he says. “Six more hours.”

Thor’s own shift ends before midnight. Six more hours means that Loki will be here until three in the morning easy. Thor is tired—exhausted, really—but a strange part of him wishes he could extend his own hours, shift his own schedule just a little so that when Loki finally gets off, bone-tired in the late hours of the night—or early hours of the morning—he won’t have to walk to his car by himself.

“I have the next two days off,” Thor says as he comes back to the table.

“What do you do on your days off?” Loki asks curiously. He gathers all of the crumbs his cookie has left on the table and tips them into the clear wrapper. Then he sets it to the side and wraps both of his hands around his coffee.

Thor has to think about this and he has flashes of this and that.

“I like being outdoors,” he says. “I go hiking, swimming if the weather’s warm. I have a yard. I garden.”

“You garden?” Loki says, blinking in surprise. “ _You_?”

“Why, don’t I look like I could garden?” Thor smiles.

“Surgeons are all jocks and frat bros,” Loki says, leaning across the table conspiratorially. It’s nothing Thor hasn’t heard before, so he laughs. “You know this. Even the women. You’re all...chest bumps and dirty jokes in between scrubbing up for procedures.”

“The thing is, Loki,” Thor says and leans forward too. “Can I call you Loki?”

Around them, the TV drones on and there’s an announcement for Dr. Okoye over the speakers. There’s the low, active thrum of a hospital at night.

In here, there’s just the two of them.

“You can call me Loki,” Loki says, green eyes bright.

Thor grins and Loki looks intrigued. Under the table, their feet bump.

“Well, Loki, I can tell dirty jokes and plant vegetables at the same time,” he says. “For example, did you know that my garden is _very_ prolific in...eggplants?”

Loki chokes on his coffee, coloring violently, and he looks in between furious and on the verge of laughing.

It doesn’t take much at this point, but Thor feels it again—that soft smudge of affection in the center of his chest. This Loki is different from his Loki and from all of the other Lokis he’s come across as well. He’s softer, somehow, sharp and witty and funny, but without all of the hard edges that the world around him has always shaped his brother to be.

This is a Loki that is, for all intents and purposes, _normal_. Loki as he could be, if he just had a normal, happy upbringing. A Loki who smiles at Thor without any barbs. A Loki who rolls his eyes playfully and drinks his coffee without his shoulders hitched up near his ears.

Thor hopes he gets more time with this Loki.

“And how large are these...eggplants?” he asks.

Never let it be said that Thor Odinson was ever unwilling to talk about...vegetables.

“Oh,” Thor says, with a wolfish grin of his own. “ _Very_ large.”

Loki coughs slightly and looks over his cup thoughtfully.

“I see,” he says. “Well perhaps you can show me these eggplants then. One day.”

Now it’s Thor’s turn to blush and gape. This makes Loki very very amused. He grins and gets up with his trash.

“This has been an enlightening conversation, Dr. Odinson,” he says. “I have to go change some bedpans now, but I will be thinking about this.”

“My eggplants?” Thor says, looking up at him and Loki’s grin widens, wolfish at the edges.

“Yes. I _love_ eggplant,” he says.

He throws his trash away, but his fingers trail across Thor’s shoulder before he leaves the room.

Thor, feeling sparks down his spine, turns to watch him go.

“You can call me Thor,” he calls to Loki.

Loki pauses at the doorway and Thor watches the lines of his shoulders closely, selfishly. Then, without another word, he leaves.

It takes Thor ten minutes to settle down again, but this time as he finishes his report, it’s with a wide, pleased grin on his face.

*

Bucky has the next day off and then another 12 hour shift that starts at 7 am. He doesn’t do much on his day off except sleep, roll out of bed to eat, and scroll through his contacts to find out who he does and doesn’t know in this reality.

He’s pleased to find the usual suspects, although he’s a little disconcerted by just how many texts he and Loki appear to send to each other each day. Most of them are shitposts from Twitter and memes that Bucky only half-understands, but it’s more than he would have anticipated given Bucky has two friends in the world and neither of them are a Norse god of mischief named Loki Laufeyson. Well, two friends in his world, he supposes. In this world, he gets a non-stop stream of text messages that he chooses to ignore out of sheer drama.

He does find Thor’s name though, so after ordering $30 worth of Taco Bell through whatever food delivery service delivers _Taco Bell_ , he rings him.

“Bucky!” Thor’s voice booms over the phone.

“Hey, you okay?” Bucky asks, leaning against the kitchen counter in his studio apartment. “What happened back there?”

He hadn’t found a shard in the mirrorverse, so it had to have been Thor.

“Ah, that,” Thor says over the line. There’s some weird sounds and then he sighs. “Yes, well, Loki was one of your supersoldiers and then he stabbed me with some strange weapon that I am fairly certain was powered by a piece of the Tesseract.”

Why does every story involving Loki seem to end with him stabbing Thor? Bucky wonders.

“I guess you got it,” Bucky says, instead. “Since we’re...here.”

“Yes, it was a bit of an ordeal,” Thor says vaguely. “On the bright side, it appears that you do not carry your injuries with you between different universes, otherwise I would have fallen over and bled out in the middle of colon surgery.”

Bucky blinks at his blank TV, as though he’s heard wrong.

“You want to try that again?”

“It appears I am a surgeon of great renown here,” Thor says, cheerfully. “I have already completed a very successful surgery _and_ Loki and I had a very pleasant time talking about eggplants.”

Bucky sucks in a breath.

“You know what?” he says. “I don’t need to know.”

Thor chuckles over the line and then there’s more strange noises.

“What’s happening over there?” Bucky asks.

“Oh, great news, not only am I an extremely successful surgeon, I am very talented at gardening,” he says. “I am pulling tomatoes and cucumbers as we speak.”

“Oh,” Bucky says. Then it dawns on him and he laughs. “ _Oh_. You meant, like, literal eggplants. You and Loki were talking about your literal eggplants.”

“No, no,” Thor says, cheerfully. “We were talking about my manhood.”

Bucky curses and, fumbling with his phone, hangs up on Thor.

He’s certain he heard the dumb Norse God roaring with laughter over the line before it went dead.

“Your first instinct, Barnes,” Bucky mutters to himself, his hand smashed against his face. “Always trust your first instinct.”

The doorbell rings and he leaves his cursed phone to go pick up his $30 worth of Taco Bell. He spends the rest of the evening eating his weight in chicken chalupas and spicy chicken burritos and beef nachos of dubious quality and watching a marathon of mid-2000s comedy classic Scrubs on the Hulu subscription he evidently shares with Natasha Romanoff.

It’s not a terrible way to spend a day off, although later in the night, he will suffer from consuming that much fake meat.

  
Anyway, so it’s 7 am when he arrives at the hospital for his next shift. He’s dressed in fresh scrubs and has a thermos of coffee the size of his forearm that is glued to his mouth as though it’s his lifeline, which, to be clear, it is.

Well, in fairness, he stops to refill the thermos at Starbucks and so by the time he steps onto the floor for his shift it’s—

“7:15,” Steve says, glaring at him from the nurse’s station. “Do you see this chart?”

Bucky, standing in front of the station with the thermos still glued to his mouth, eyes widening, nods.

“What is this chart, Dr. Barnes?”

Bucky swallows a mouthful of coffee and ventures, “The...schedule?”

“Yes,” Steve says. “The schedule. And next to your name here—right here, yes, where it says Dr. James Barnes, what time does it say?”

Bucky lowers his thermos.

“...7:00 am.”

“And what time is it now?” Steve’s eyes narrow into terrifying slits.

“I had to get coffee!” Bucky protests and Steve’s glare intensifies in such a way that Bucky chokes on coffee that he has already swallowed and ingested.

“Yes, you’re the only one who has ever experienced exhaustion before, surely the only human being who needs caffeine in the morning to be fully functioning,” Steve says. He gathers a bunch of files in his arms and, with a distinctly displeased look at Bucky, shoves them into his arms. “Now, if it isn’t too much trouble, these are your patients for the morning. Some of them are life or death, but by all means, take your time. We are all quite at our leisure here.”

Steve grabs a clipboard of his own and stomps away down the hallway.

Bucky, his mouth open, arms full, stares after him.

“Dude,” Clint says from behind the counter. “He wants to murder you in cold blood.”

“I don’t even know what I did!” Bucky hisses at Clint and Clint shakes his head.

“Whatever it was, I hope you’re given a chance for a redemption arc soon,” he says. “Because otherwise.”

He draws a finger across his throat and pantomimes Bucky’s head falling off his shoulders.

It’s dramatic and funny, but also menacing and not untrue, probably. Bucky gulps down some more coffee and, with a shudder, picks up his patient files in order to start making his rounds.

  
Well as luck so happens, Bucky’s not the only person whose shift starts at 7:00 am today. That is to say that the hospital has no regards for Bucky’s quality of life, because he and Steve are scheduled together all day and since they’re both medical, they end up in the same room with the same patients more often than they don’t.

The ER is somewhat busy this morning with a moderate variety of cases: another suspected case of appendicitis, a child who fractured his foot, a case of low blood sugar, a case of high blood sugar, a middle aged woman who suffered from a mild heart attack overnight, a case Bucky suspects is a severe case of the flu, a young, high-strung man Bucky is almost certain is just a hypochondriac, and a college student who is probably so dehydrated because she drank her weight in vodka the night before and had spent the entire early hours of the morning emptying everything in her stomach.

He makes the rounds slowly, going from patient to patient, talking to them where they’re lucid and their family members where they aren’t. He checks their charts and what treatment has been prescribed, adjusts dosages and treatments where needed, and orders a variety of blood and other tests where he thinks necessary. Steve is almost always at his elbow, checking temperatures, administering doses of medicine, switching out IV bags and lines, and generally giving Bucky the cold treatment unless Bucky has something he has to ask of him in front of a patient.

It’s borderline unbearable.

He’s not _unprofessional_ , per se, nothing Bucky thinks a patient would write to the hospital about, but he certainly isn’t friendly and by the fourth patient of the morning, Bucky is exasperated trying to get Steve to give him a fucking chance.

“Nurse Rogers, can I see you outside?” he asks as Steve’s starting an IV line on a patient who’s severely dehydrated.

Steve freezes while attaching the catheter to the man’s line.

“I’m starting an IV, Doctor,” he says stiffly. “As you instructed.”

“After that,” Bucky says.

Bucky can see Steve’s jaw working, but he knows Steve wouldn’t actually be a dick in front of a patient. Steve nods and Bucky replaces the patient’s chart and waits for Steve outside of the room.

It’s five minutes before Steve comes out and when he does, Bucky can tell by the rigid lines of his shoulders that he’s furious. He has his arms crossed at his chest and he looks up at Bucky with pure murder in his eyes.

“What,” he says flatly.

“What is that?” Bucky says, not bothering to beat around the bush.

“What is what, _Doctor_?”

“ _That_ ,” Bucky says. “This. Your attitude. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

Steve’s eyes flash, his mouth severe.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says. “I am trying to do my job.”

“Yeah, so am I,” Bucky says. “But, frankly, you’re being a tool and I want to know why.”

“Is that an official complaint?” Steve says through grit teeth. “I’m not nice enough for you?”

“This isn’t professional,” Bucky says, glaring at him. Sometimes, Steve Rogers can be a real pain in his ass. “I get that you don’t like me and I don’t know what I did, but that doesn’t matter. When you act like that with me in there—do you think the patient doesn’t notice?”

Steve breathes out through his nose and his arms tighten where they’re locked.

“Am I doing my job poorly, Dr. Barnes?” Steve asks.

Bucky frowns.

“No.”

“Have I neglected any of my patients?”

“No,” Bucky says. “But—”

“Have any patients complained about me? Have I been late to my shift? Have I forgotten to take a temperature? Change a bedpan? Report someone’s fever? Call in medication or a consult or take a blood or urine sample to the lab?”

“Steve,” Bucky says, frustration. “ _No_ , but—”

“If you have an actual _complaint_ about my performance, Dr. Barnes, I am happy to hear your critique and fix my actions accordingly,” Steve says. His nostrils are flaring and Bucky knows, from memory, that Steve’s nostrils only flare when he is beyond the pale, incandescently angry. “But if your complaint is that I am not _happy_ or _friendly_ enough for you, then with all due respect, _sir_ , I will tell you to shove the fuck off.”

Bucky reels as though he’s been physically shoved by Steve. He’s so unused to being on the receiving end of such vitriol by his best friend that he doesn’t know how to respond. Instead, he stands there, speechless, with his mouth hanging open as though his last two brain cells have left and taken his ability to verbalize any thoughts with them.

“That’s what I thought,” Steve says after a minute of utter silence. Stiffly, he turns. “Now, if you’re done wasting both of our times, I have half a dozen patients left I need to look after this morning, and unless you want to change out the urine bags instead, I’d move.”

In a distant corner of his brain, Bucky’s pretty sure that Steve is not only being a dick, but he is being a _massive_ dick. This isn’t just him in a bad mood or him being particularly prickly, it’s Steve Rogers with a personal grudge to burn and—for some reason—no real inclination to pretend otherwise.

“Jesus,” Bucky says, exhaling with frustration after Steve’s left. He runs a hand through his hair and looks down the hallway, feeling unsettled and disgruntled.

He doesn’t know what Steve’s exact damage is, but he doesn’t really think they have the time to tease out the full source of this animosity. There’s no real rhyme or reason to when he and Thor tumble through the multiverse. They could find the next shard of the Tesseract at any time and when they do, they leave this one in whatever state it’s in and go on to the next one.

It feels him with an overwhelming sense of unease and not a little anxiety to think about leaving this Steve here like _this_ , hating Bucky for no reason Bucky can parse out, with no real resolution and no real step toward repairing their relationship to what it _should_ be.

This is their fifth reality in the multiverse—not including their own—and in each of them, he and Steve have revolved around each other. Even if it hasn’t been easy—even if he’s been a literal vampire and Steve a literal vampire _hunter_ , there’s always been something there between them—friendship or interest or understanding or love— _any_ kind of love. But this? To have Steve barely be able to stay in the same room as him, for him glare at Bucky coldly, with no desire to pursue any kind of relationship with him otherwise?

No, that doesn’t sit well with Bucky.

A world where Steve and Bucky aren’t _Steve and Bucky_ in some capacity is no world at all. At least not a world Bucky is willing to acknowledge.

He sighs again as he hears his name over the intercom.

“Doctor Barnes,” Bucky hears Clint’s voice. “You’re needed in Room 212. Again, Doctor Barnes, you’re needed in Room 212. Please report to Room 212 as soon as possible.”

Room 212 is just down the hall. Bucky adjusts his stethoscope and, ignoring his own feelings of dread and frustration, walks quickly toward where he’s been summoned.

He stops outside of the room and looks in through the glass window.

Inside, Steve is checking the heart monitor of an old man who’s speaking to him. Steve’s shoulders are tense, but his expression is completely different from the one Bucky had just seen. Here, it’s kind. He smiles at whatever the old man is saying and, after a moment, leans toward him to help him adjust his pillow and lay more properly on the bed.

Bucky watches for a minute, trying to reconcile the Steve who had verbally eviscerated him not five minutes ago with the gentle Steve he sees inside.

Well, Bucky thinks, he supposes that at least makes some sense. Hasn’t it always been like this? Steve Rogers, vital and necessary to everyone else, and Steve Rogers, someone else when everyone isn’t counting on him. Maybe this Steve Rogers is a bit angrier and a bit meaner than the one Bucky remembers, but that doesn’t make him an unsolvable mystery.

Bucky could do without the verbal lashing personally, but he has known Steve his entire life and he thinks this one isn’t _that_ different. Sometimes, all Steve needs is someone willing to be as stubborn as he is. Sometimes, all Steve needs is someone willing to be even more stubborn.

Bucky sighs, shakes his head, and lets himself into the room.

Steve looks up at him from next to the old man, his eyes narrowing a bit in suspicion, but Bucky ignores him.

“Mr. Gilbert,” Bucky says instead, with a kind smile. “I see you have a bit of an arrhythmia. Let’s see what’s going on here.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my FAVORITE AUs, I just think it is so much fun. And after the last few AUs, you guys deserve a bit of fun. I hope you enjoy it (and cute lil prickly nurse Steve) as much as I do! ♥


	14. Chapter Fourteen. [ fifth oddity: medical ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Steve Rogers has not tried to stab you even once and I think that is very sad,” Thor says. “Maybe this will be a great opportunity for you both.”
> 
> “To what?” Bucky says, staring at his companion, who five realities in, was indicating signs that he had lost his entire mind. 
> 
> “Connect to one another in a different way,” Thor says with a shrug. “If you cannot overcome a little hatred, can you really be meant for one another?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone who was able to spend yesterday eating with friends and family had a safe and festive day! May you spend today and this weekend eating more pie and nursing your mashed potato hangovers.
> 
> For your treat, with whatever leftover pie you might be eating--some more hospital shenanigans.

They’re cordial enough, if cold, as they work through the rest of the ER this morning and by the time it’s noon and Bucky’s slate has cleared for the time being, he’s exhausted from the residual tension. It’s a relief to get a break from Steve, which is not a thought Bucky Barnes has had too many times in his life, but which he is happy enough to admit to now. His shoulders are up near his ears and his back is aching from how tense he’s been for the past few hours.

He exhales as he gives back the last of his patient files to Clint, who gives him a knowing look and offers him another cardboard protein bar, which Bucky politely declines.

Anyway, he has a busy afternoon of notes and checking on more admits so he doesn’t really have the time to go to the cafeteria for a proper lunch. Instead, he lets himself into the staff room where he knows for a fact that the sandwich vending machine is OK.

OK is about as high a bar as he’s willing to clear right now so he stands near the vending machine and takes his time looking through the meager selection before settling on a chicken salad sandwich, a bag of cheddar and sour cream chips, and a can of Coke. There’s a nutrient in there somewhere, he figures.

He collapses onto one of the couches in the staff room with his lunch and his laptop closed on a coffee table that’s piled with outdated magazines and a couple of medical non-fiction books that he’s not sure anyone has ever read.

Other doctors, nurses, residents, and interns filter in and out of the staff room as the lunch hour passes. Bucky sees Stephen Strange pass by the door and Okoye grab a candy bar from the vending machine. Maria Hill appears to be an intern, along with a woman with a bright smile and razor-sharp wit named Nakia, and both of them sit at a table and play cards with Wanda Maximoff, who’s one of the day nurses and appears in pink scrubs that have starbursts all over them. Carol Danvers, the Head of Surgery, hovers just outside the door talking to T’Challa, who Bucky understands to be the attending cardiologist and after a while, the two of them leave, still talking, and are replaced by—to Bucky’s horror—Scott Lang, who is also dressed in nurse’s scrubs and who waves at Bucky maniacally through the doorway and then grabs a can of soda and sits across from him on the couch and talks Bucky’s ear off about some Netflix show that Bucky has never seen or heard of.

Bucky finishes his mediocre chicken sandwich by then and is halfway through his bag of chips and tuning out Scott Lang when he hears a familiar voice and exclamation from the doorway.

“Ah, there you are!”

Bucky looks up with blooming relief and Thor, dressed in surgical scrubs and a face mask covering his golden beard and scruff, sinks onto the couch next to Scott.

“Dr. Odinson!” Scott says enthusiastically, his eyes going wide. “It is a pleasure—no, an _honor_ to meet you! You’re—we haven’t had a chance to meet since I’m new here and I’m not a surgical nurse, but I’ve heard about you of course and your surgical record and I have so many questions—I read the article you published last year in the American Journal of Medicine about the prediction of cardiac and pulmonary complications related to elected abdominal and noncardiac—”

“Yes, yes,” Thor says, making eye contact with Bucky and then bringing down a large hand on Scott’s shoulder forcefully. “I am very well-renowned, of course, and critically acclaimed. See, Bucky? Remember, I was telling you and my fine friend here—”

“Scott!” Scott squeaks. “Scott Lang!”

“Yes, of course, I knew that,” Thor says, nodding deeply. “My fine friend Scott Lang here has all of the details of my esteemed career. Say, Scott Lang, could you do me a favor?”

“Yes!” Scott says, eyes widening. “Anything, Dr. Odinson!”

“There is a nurse,” Thor says, leaning closer. “Nurse Laufeyson. He is with the surgical nurses. Could you find him for me and tell him that Dr. Odinson is looking for him?”

Scott nods his head like a broken bobblehead toy and Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“It’s very important,” Thor says gravely. “About a patient. A matter of life and death.”

Scott shoots up.

“Yes, of course,” he says, stricken. “I’ll go find him now—the nurses, we all know everything. We’ll find him—I’ll find him for you, Dr. Odinson!”

“Thank you, my fine friend!” Thor says. He’s beaming at Scott, which has Scott looking as though he’s won a particularly coveted prize.

Once he’s left, Bucky rolls his eyes and finishes his chips.

“When Loki finds you, he’s going to kill you,” he says. “Scalpel to the lung.”

“Nonsense,” Thor says. “This Loki likes me quite a lot.”

“Does this Loki _know_ you?” Bucky asks, his intonation suggesting the same thing his raised eyebrow is.

Thor coughs and looks around them innocently, as though he hasn’t heard the question.

“Anyway,” Thor says. “How are things with Captain Rogers? I hear he wishes for you to die.”

“Where did you hear that!” Bucky says, outraged.

Thor takes Bucky’s can of Coke, which further fuels Bucky’s outrage.

“Hey!”

Thor waves a hand at him dismissively and opens the can of soda.

“Everyone knows,” he says. “I barely even had to ask. At least two interns, one attending, and three residents told me about it specifically and all I had asked was whether they had heard of Dr. Barnes.”

Bucky groans and rubs his hands across his face.

“Typical,” he says. “That man is going to be the death of me.”

“At least it’s different,” Thor says through a mouthful of Coke.

“What?” Bucky looks at him blearily.

“Oh you two are always so—” Thor says and gestures vaguely. “Something something childhood sweethearts and something soulmates and something _you’re definitely not in love with him even though you are_ and it’s all very boring. Where’s the tension? Where’s the _drama_?”

“First of all that’s not—!” Bucky splutters, turning red. “That’s not—we’re not! We don’t! Anyway, what are you, co-opting Loki’s entire personality?”

“My brother is not always mentally sound, but he’s not _wrong_ ,” Thor says with a grin. “Well. Not always. Not about this.”

Bucky grumbles. He crumples his trash and dumps it into the receptacle next to him.

“Steve Rogers has not tried to stab you even once and I think that is very sad,” Thor says. “Maybe this will be a great opportunity for you both.”

“To what?” Bucky says, staring at his companion, who five realities in, was indicating signs that he had lost his entire mind.

“Connect to one another in a different way,” Thor says with a shrug. “If you cannot overcome a little hatred, can you really be meant for one another?”

Bucky continues to stare at him.

“You and Loki are not...normal,” he says slowly. “You know that right? That’s not the normal relationship?”

“Hm,” Thor says, as though considering this for the first time.

“Forget it,” Bucky says with a sigh and reaches for his laptop.

Thor finishes the rest of the soda in a few gulps and puts the empty can down on the table.

“I do not know what the Captain has been through in this reality or even anything about him here, really, but I do know that everyone speaks of him highly,” Thor says.

Bucky frowns, booting up the laptop. He looks up at Thor and Thor stands.

“He has a reputation for being, what did Sam Wilson say to me—oh, prickly,” Thor says. “Perhaps a bit of a hardass. Mean, sometimes. But extremely competent and by far the best nurse when it comes to patient happiness. Patients love him. So maybe he is not all bad.”

“I never said Steve was bad,” Bucky mutters.

“Talk to him,” Thor says. “Give him a chance. And if he stabs you, forgive him.”

Bucky squints up at Thor and his friend is grinning again. He replaces his mask on his face.

“Must go,” he says. “Open heart surgery. I am feeling quite confident about it.”

“You’re so fucking weird, dude,” Bucky says.

“Thank you very much,” Thor says sunnily.

He throws the Coke can into recycling as he goes, leaving Bucky with his patient notes, a muddied head, and, shortly thereafter, an out-of-breath Scott Lang who’s run back into the staff room with a message from Loki to Thor to, and he quotes, _use your fucking beeper like a normal doctor if you want to reach someone in the hospital._

*

He finishes a successful knee replacement surgery that takes two hours of his shift and sits down with his files, notes, and a large mug of coffee to work on his operative report. No one really bothers him while he finishes his report and it’s been a surprisingly peaceful and productive evening by the time Bucky sticks his head into the staff room to find Thor shutting down the laptop he’s used to type up his handwritten notes.

“There you are,” Bucky says. “Do you ever check your cell phone?”

Thor blinks, mid-stretch, and reaches forward to turn his phone over. He has 3 missed calls and a dozen missed text messages. Whoops.

“There must be more efficient ways of communication,” Thor says, pocketing his phone.

“I’m sorry, we were fresh out of ravens,” Bucky says dryly. “You hungry?”

Never let it be said that Thor Odinson has ever missed a meal, but now that Bucky mentions it, he’s not sure when he last ate. Is this why Midgardians are always complaining about “the terrible working conditions under capitalism”? Such a thing would never be accepted on Asgard.

“I am famished,” he says, getting up. “Let me put this electronic device away and then I will join you in the cafeteria.”

Bucky gives Thor a double thumbs up and disappears through the other side of the doorway.

Feeling strangely cheerful despite his empty stomach, Thor puts away his notes and laptop and thinks how much his Loki would laugh if he were here to see Thor being what he called a “not completely useless member of society.”

  
The hospital has two cafeterias—one in the North wing and one in the South wing—but really only one that has food worthy of human consumption. This is not something they tell patients or their visitors, but it’s unofficial knowledge shared by hospital staff who share such common traits as terrible work-life balance and work schedules that _only_ allow for unhealthy eating habits.

Thor is in his teal scrubs, his long hair pulled back, and a stethoscope around his neck as he gets in line at one of the hot bar stations. The specials tonight seem to be some fancy pesto ravioli, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and a whole roast turkey with macaroni. Thor gives the cafeteria workers a certain smile, leaning forward and letting them know how much more integral they are to hospital operations than literally anyone else currently in the building, and ends up with meatloaf, mashed potatoes, _and_ the pesto ravioli for his efforts.

“Unbelievable,” Bucky grumbles, looking over at Thor’s tray as he sits down at the small table across from his friend. “I think they charged me extra for the fruit cup. I don’t think it’s supposed to be extra.”

“Well perhaps it is a matter of—” Thor says and makes a general gesture at his own face to indicate his thought on the matter. Bucky Barnes doesn’t seem to understand. He frowns.

“A matter of what?” Bucky says.

“Your face,” Thor says cheerfully and spears a ravioli before stuffing it into his mouth.

Bucky scowls and Thor hears a chuckle. He looks up and sees Carol Danvers and T’Challa with their trays.

“Do not let Dr. Odinson wear on your spirits, Dr. Barnes,” T’Challa says kindly, in his pleasing Wakandan accent. “You have a perfectly amiable face.”

“Does amiable mean something different in Wakandan?” Carol says as they both take a seat at the table with Thor and Bucky.

“Hey!” Bucky protests and Thor snickers into his plate until Bucky kicks him hard under the table and then the laughter turns into a squeak.

“Dr. Barnes has a reputation as a very good doctor,” T’Challa says. He opens his bottle of sparkling water.

“I am certain he is very capable of inducing medical miracles with that look on his face,” Thor says.

Bucky touches his face with a hand.

“What look? What’s wrong with my face?”

“It’s a very good face, Bucky,” Carol says. She peels the plastic back on her own fruit cup. “If you’re into the brooding, grumpy type.”

“Which many patients are,” T’Challa says, kindly. Well, his tone is kindly. The grin on his face is definitely bordering wicked and Bucky scowls at all of them.

“Did you have to pay for that?” he says, leaning over Carol’s shoulder as she sticks a plastic spoon into her fruit cup.

Bucky and Carol begin talking some nonsense about fruit cups and highway robbery, so Thor’s turning his attention back to the former King of Wakanda when he’s distracted by the sound of familiar laughter a few tables over.

There’s a table of them—Loki and Clint Barton and Wanda Maximoff and, to Thor’s surprise, a begrudgingly smiling Steve Rogers. Bucky must not have noticed them yet otherwise he would not still be complaining about fruit and pointed surcharges, but Thor is intrigued by this apparent division between the doctors and the nurses, although, in truth, more interested in how Loki leans across the table to pluck a fry from Steve’s tray and Steve scowls at him and swats him away, but doesn’t stop Loki from stealing another one.

There’s only a brief stab of jealousy before Thor realizes he’s being ridiculous. He takes a fork full of mashed potatoes and tries to hide a grin as Loki’s voice climbs above Clint’s as the two of them bicker about something Thor can’t make out. He’s never seen his brother like this—not in their world and not in any other world that they have shared so far. Loki, not only laughing and teasing and easy, but with a levity to him that Thor did not realize he could possess. Loki with a purpose—something that he is truly, genuinely good at and recognized for. Loki with friends.

“Doctor,” T’Challa says across from him.

Thor’s attention is drawn back to his own table. T’Challa has a knowing smile on his face.

“You can call me Thor, you know,” Thor says to him. “Doctor makes it sound so formal.”

“You are not one for formality?” T’Challa asks.

Thor shrugs.

“I was once,” he says, with a thin smile. “But these days I find it doesn’t matter so much. Who calls you what. What is a title between people you care about?”

T’Challa looks surprised, but then his expression—always so regal, no matter how he tries—smooths out.

“How long have you been here?” the other man asks. T’Challa is an excellent cardiologist—the best in the hospital—but he was a new acquisition. He had moved from Wakanda to New York City to finish medical school and do his residency, had moved from New York City to Chicago for his fellowship, and had been scooped up by the hospital within the last year.

Thor thinks about the question and finds the information slides into place easily.

“Norns,” he says. “Eight years now? Can it already have been so long?”

“You like it here,” T’Challa says with a smile.

Thor is often tired and sometimes sick unto death of this place, but he feels a sense of warmth and security that he’s so rarely felt anywhere else in his life. His mouth quirks up at the corner as, to one side, he hears Carol and Bucky bickering over something and to the other side he sees Steve smack Clint upside his head and Loki snicker into his soft drink.

“I do,” Thor says. Loki stands up dramatically and Thor’s attention is immediately drawn to him. Steve rolls his eyes and Clint grabs his elbow to drag him back down.

“It is not only the hospital you like,” T’Challa says, knowingly.

With some effort Thor tears his eyes away from Loki toward T’Challa. The other man gives him the kind of amused, knowing look that would not be out of place on Heimdall’s face. Thor blinks at the thought and files that away to examine more thoroughly later—a friendship between T’Challa and Heimdall would be—

Well.

Thor’s happiness flickers.

A friendship between T’Challa and Heimdall could not be.

Of course, Heimdall is dead where it matters the most to him.

All of this is false. Loki’s laughter in the air. None of it is for him.

“You should tell him,” T’Challa says, after a moment.

“What?” Thor looks at him.

T’Challa takes the look in stride, shrugs, and eats a piece of ravioli himself.

“Life is short, Thor,” he says. “It is a cliche, but it is also true. I have lost too many patients in this career—too many this month alone and every time I have to pronounce someone on the table, or watch their vitals decline later, I think—my God, life is too damn short.”

Not for all us, Thor thinks, sadly. Or it shouldn’t be. Life isn’t short—shouldn’t be short—for Norse Gods who are destined to live and outlive entire ages of the world.

He thinks about Heimdall again, his golden eyes open, gut in front of him in a monstrous, cruel, irreversible act. Heimdall, his friend of centuries, there one moment and then gone forevermore the next.

So maybe that’s not true either.

Whether it’s 10 years or 20 or 50 or 200 or 2000, maybe time is always short when at the end, the things that matter the most can be taken from you so easily.

Maybe life is always too short if you can’t do anything to save it.

T’Challa gives Thor another smile, but this one is softer, almost unbearably kind.

“The worst he can do is say no,” he says. “There are much worse pains than that.”

Thor knows. He has felt such pains, shoulders bowed with burdens that would crush a lesser Asgardian. Still, he thinks of this Loki with his small smiles and his easy conversation and Thor feels something small flutter in his belly. It’s tight and exciting, overwhelming and awful.

It takes him a while to place the feeling. Thor has lived two-thousand-something years and it has been a long time since he has felt anything close to nerves.

“Maybe,” he murmurs.

T’Challa nods, but does not pressure him further.

They finish their meals in thoughtful silence.

Eventually, Bucky and Carol Danvers stop arguing and draw the other two back into conversation. It is a fun, enjoyable, almost lighthearted respite from the weight of their days. Thor finishes his entire tray and steals what dessert is left over on Bucky’s own.

When he looks back over, Loki has left. There is only Steve Rogers, cleaning up his tray and standing. He looks over at their own table for the first time and Thor hears Bucky fall silent.

  
He spends most of the evening checking up on patients who are recovering from surgery. For the most part, everyone seems quiet and stable tonight, although Mrs. Hernandez in Room 430 has elevated blood pressure that he has to instruct Wanda to administer medicine for, and Mr. Agnew in Room 422 has an infection that needs antibiotics, and poor Mr. Anderson in Room 401 has to begin dialysis in the morning, which Thor takes some time to talk him through.

“We have orders from your nephrologist, Dr. Coulson. We’ll begin your first rounds here, but you’ll begin outpatient dialysis once you’ve been discharged,” Thor says with a reassuring smile. “Dr. Coulson will be by to check up on you tomorrow after you’ve had your first round.”

He walks over to the nurse’s station and gives Wanda some last minute instructions for a couple of other patients and, on second thought, asks her to keep a closer eye on Mr. Agnew, who he’s worried about developing something more severe post-op.

By the time he gets another break, it’s a quarter past midnight and he’s rubbing his eyes in exhaustion.

“You’re here for another six hours,” a familiar voice says behind him.

Thor stops pressing his palms against his eyeballs and pivots slightly to see Loki with a crooked smile and an arm full of patient files.

“How did you know that?” he asks, his own lips twitching.

“Oh, I’m a psychic,” Loki says. He slips behind Thor to pile the patient files at his desk. “Inherited the eye through my mother’s side. Sometimes the metaphysical waves overwhelm me and I know the answers to mundane things in the marrow of my bones.”

Thor is uncertain what to say to this, but he must look his usual mixture of surprised and dumb, because Loki’s face crumbles into laughter.

“Or I checked the schedule,” he says. “My god, your face just now.”

Thor colors, just a little embarrassed, but then he drags his hands across his mouth, his fingers through his beard.

“So you’ve been checking the schedule for me?” he asks.

Loki’s smirk is unabashed.

“My eyes glanced at the chart and your name just happened to be there,” he says.

“And you just happened to commit my hours to your memory,” Thor says with a grin.

Loki shrugs airily.

“The brain is a mysterious organ, Dr. Odinson,” he says.

Thor, leaning against the nurse’s station now as Loki puts away the patient files, can’t help how goofy and eager to please he sounds.

“Don’t say that in front of Stephen Strange,” he says. “If you don’t have at least three hours for the lecture that follows.”

Loki turns from where he’s rummaging through a filing cabinet to make a face.

“Where were you three months ago,” he demands.

Thor can’t help it, Loki looks so disgruntled and the thought of him being cornered by Stephen Strange and having to listen to a technical and exceptionally boring lecture on the brain is so funny, he tilts his head back and starts laughing.

He can hear Loki’s grumbling, but it barely filters through his own puffs of laughter. Eventually, Loki, exasperated, grabs his jacket and comes out from behind the nurse’s station.

His hand closes around Thor’s left bicep and with a tug, he says, “Come on, follow me.”

  
They wind up on the hospital roof at half past 12, the chilly wind biting into them as they lean against the roof’s edge and look down at the quiet, glittering city so late at night.

“You know that’s bad for you,” Thor says and Loki gives him such a withering look that he has to laugh again.

“Thanks,” Loki says as he shakes out a cigarette into his palm. “I’m a surgical nurse in the field of medicine, but I hadn’t been aware that smoking is _bad for you_.”

Thor, amused, watches as Loki puts the rest of the pack away and searches his jacket pockets for his lighter.

“Maybe you missed nursing school the day they mentioned how much damage tobacco does to your lungs or how your chance of lung cancer skyrockets after you’ve begun the habit,” he says.

Loki finds his lighter and brings it out. He sticks the cigarette in between his lips and glares at Thor.

“If you want to continue being on this roof with me, you’re going to light me up,” he says.

Thor doesn’t know whether the threat is that he’ll be sent back inside or sent flying off the roof, but both options seem less than appealing to him currently and wholly within Loki’s powers to accomplish, so he just gives Loki a self-effacing grin and takes the lighter from him.

Loki cups his hands around the cigarette to protect it from the wind as Thor flicks the lighter on. It takes a few tries, but the end of the cigarette eventually lights up in a bright orange glow and Loki pulls his hands away to take a deep drag.

“Thanks,” he says after he’s exhaled and he asks for the lighter back.

“Why is it that the people in the medical field are the unhealthiest persons?” Thor muses as he leans back against the roof ledge.

“Easy,” Loki says and joins beside him. “We have no self respect and no personal time to buy ourselves any.”

“Where does one buy self respect?” Thor asks. “Is that something they sell at a specialty retailer? Wholesale at Costco?”

“No, if you buy enough sweaters at Old Navy, they’ll give you a coupon for some,” Loki says.

“Old Navy is where you go for self respect?” Thor wonders out loud.

“It’s the most affordable option,” Loki says and takes another drag of his cigarette.

Thor’s laughter is quieter this time, soft and carried away on the wind.

They stand quietly, comfortably, side-by-side for a few minutes before Loki turns his head to look at Thor.

“So what about you?” he asks.

“What about me?” Thor says.

“You don’t smoke,” Loki says. “You eat healthy. You clearly go to the gym.”

He drags his eyes up and down Thor’s body, which makes Thor feel simultaneously pleased and embarrassed.

“What’s your vice, Dr. Odinson?” Loki asks. He lets out a breath of smoke, acrid and harsh, that puffs out in front of them. “Or do you have none? I’ve never believed in human perfection before, but honestly, if you told me you had no vices at all, I’d believe you.”

  
Thor says nothing for a minute. Next to him, Loki doesn’t press. He smokes, waiting Thor out. Even here, he knows just what to say—or not to say—to get Thor to talk.

“Drinking,” Thor says. He stares at his hands. “I drink too much.”

“Don’t we all?” Loki says. Then, after a moment, “What’s too much?”

Thor shakes his head.

“Some days I can’t function without it,” he says. He shrugs. “Some days I don’t wish to try.”

“Ah,” Loki says. It’s not judgmental. It just is. “Why is that?”

Thor frowns.

“What?”

“Well,” Loki says. He’s looking at Thor again. “Vices are rarely pure...hedonism. People eat to cope. They smoke to take a breath. They drink to forget something. What do you drink to forget, Dr. Odinson?”

“Thor,” Thor reminds him.

Loki’s eyes glitter in the dark. He nods. “Thor.”

Thor takes a soft breath and it shudders in him, quiet and sharp—like little pieces of glass knicking every inch of his lungs. Why does he drink? If Thor told this Loki the whole of it, he might start shaking. If he starts shaking, he might not stop. Thor has held himself together all this time, all of the broken, cracked pieces of him, so delicately it’s like being strung by strands of gossamer.

Thor drinks to forget and he drinks to remember. Mostly, he drinks because it is the only thing that he’s good at anymore.

“I drink because,” he starts and stops. He swallows.

It’s hard enough to admit to himself. Maybe it’s worse to admit to Loki, this Loki, his Loki—any and every Loki. Still, he’s never said the words out loud. And they can’t hurt any more to speak into the night between them as they do to keep inside.

Loki, face turned back out toward the city night, is close to him. He’s closer than he was before. His shoulders press against Thor’s, a solid, soft wall of comfort.

“I’m not sure who I am anymore,” Thor says. “I drink because I’m too scared to find out.”

“Ah,” Loki says again.

They’re quiet for a while then. Thor’s head spinning, his chest aching dully. His throat feels dry and he flexes his fingers, curls them in and out. He needs a drink. He hasn’t had a drink in so long and now, thinking about it—thinking about _it_ —he needs a drink.

“What would happen?” Loki asks, suddenly.

A pause.

“What?”

“If you found out,” Loki says. His shoulders pressed against Thor’s again. “What would happen if you found out who you were?”

Thor doesn’t know the answer to that.

He shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says.

Loki says nothing for a moment. Then he smiles.

“I don’t believe that,” he says.

“What?” Thor looks at him and Loki shakes his head.

“Try again,” he says. He turns and now the two of them are facing one another. Loki takes the cigarette from his mouth, the white cylinder between his long index and middle fingers. “Thor.”

Thor doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t _have_ an answer. He doesn’t know what would happen if he found out who he was—he doesn’t know what he would ask, he doesn’t know what he would look for, he doesn’t know what he would find. There was something there before—he _was_ something before—and now he has none of that and he’s nothing and if he’s nothing, then what is he?

What is he?

“I don’t know,” he says, his voice paper thin. And then, “I’m afraid.”

A beat between them. The glow of Loki’s cigarette and the sound of cars passing in the distance.

Loki’s expression softens.

“Of what?” he asks.

Thor swallows.

Of what?

_Of what?_

He thinks about a crown on his brow and a ship in the sky, a ship destroyed, bodies strewn across wreckage, golden eyes going dim, a purple hand around a throat, green eyes flashing in the dark—everything on fire, everything turned to ashes.

Two dying stars and an axe to the chest. _You should have aimed for the head._

Nothing, for five whole years.

A snap and everything come back.

Everything except what he missed. Everything except what he was responsible for.

Oh, he thinks.

 _Oh._ That’s what it is.

Ragnarok, Thor thinks. The end of everything.

“Of not being good enough,” he says. “I’m afraid if I look, I’ll find out it was all my fault. Because I wasn’t good enough.”

Loki doesn’t say anything to that. Maybe he doesn’t have anything to say. Maybe there’s nothing he could say.

After a moment he nods and pulls his jacket closer around him.

He offers Thor his cigarette. Thor stares at the glowing end and, after a moment, takes it.

“My vice for yours,” Loki says. “If you’re not good enough, then let us not be good enough together.”

Thor doesn’t know if that’s what he needs to hear. He doesn’t know what it means, really. But he does know that he lets out a shaky breath. He knows that the sharp, aching pain in his chest eases, just slightly.

He knows that he will lift the cigarette to his lips.

He does. He takes a drag.

*

It’s just Bucky’s luck that the one reality in which he and Steve are forced to spend almost all of their time together is the reality in which Steve can’t seem to tolerate him at all. They spend three more shifts together in some sort of fucked up cold war limbo wherein Bucky tries his hardest to win Steve over and Steve’s guard is so high the only way that Bucky could scale it is he took a truck full of governmentally prohibited explosives and physically brought the whole thing down. He’s not sure how the metaphor is achievable in their daily interactions, so he just tries his best when and where he can—asking Steve’s opinion when they’re in front of patients, complimenting him when Fury comes by, and generally giving him a dumb, encouraging smile when they have to round on patients together, which is most of the time.

Steve, for his part, isn’t quite as much of a tool as he was the one time, but neither does he lighten up, maintaining such a cold, formal shoulder that Bucky thinks he should start to wear a sweater over his white coat.

“I’m starting to think it’s impossible,” Bucky says gloomily, leaning against the nurse’s station and finishing his morning thermos of coffee while Clint sleepily logs onto his station.

“Why are you trying so hard to win him over anyway?” Clint asks.

Bucky sighs. “We work together. I’d like us to be...friendly.”

Clint shrugs.

“As long as you’re not arguing in front of the patient, who cares?”

Bucky frowns.

“That’s not good enough for me,” he says.

Clint looks up at him, raising an eyebrow.

“You know not everyone can be friends, right?” he says. “Some people just...don’t like each other. Like, remember Dr. Quill?”

“The chiropractor?” Bucky says.

“No one liked that guy,” Clint says. “Even _Scott Lang_ didn’t like that guy.”

“Huh,” Bucky says and sips his coffee. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Scott’s annoying, but he’s not dumb. Quill was a tool,” Clint says. He starts typing something in and stops. “Seriously though. I thought you hated him too, so why’s it bugging you so much?”

Bucky shakes his head. As he watches, Steve shifts from one room to the other, his stethoscope hanging over his neck.

“I don’t hate him,” Bucky says, sadly.

“Oh,” Clint says with a frown, as though he’s trying to figure something out. Then he shrugs and starts typing again. “So tell him that.”

Bucky blinks and turns to face the blond.

“What?”

“He probably thinks you hate him and that’s why he hates you,” Clint says. “Either way, go away, I have a lot of work to do and you’re getting your messy feelings all over my workspace.”

“Rude as hell,” Bucky mutters, but he does have patients he needs to see, so he straightens anyway and finishes his coffee.

Well, maybe Clint’s not entirely wrong. Steve has never taken to being disliked very well. His favorite defense mechanism is to reject before he can be rejected too.

“What a dumbass,” Bucky mutters to himself and then, after heaving a long-suffering sigh, goes to see about winning over his former best friend again.

  
He and Steve work in tandem throughout much of the morning, Bucky checking in on patients after Steve’s done all of the preliminary work. He consults with Steve where he can and tells each of the patients that they’re in the most capable hands possible. Steve only barely resists rolling his eyes each time Bucky says it, which Bucky knows because he is all too familiar with the pinched, almost constipated look on his best friend’s face. It would make him laugh if it wasn’t all so _fucking annoying_.

“Nurse Rogers will take all of your vitals,” Bucky says with a smile to a young woman who’s come in complaining of shortness of breath. “And then I’ll be back in a bit to see what we can do.”

“How long?” the young woman asks, looking worried.

“At the turn of the hour,” Bucky promises. “But don’t worry. Nurse Rogers will be here to take care of you in the meantime. He’s one of our best. You’re in the most capable hands we have.”

Bucky takes leave of the patient and after a minute, Steve follows after him.

“You’re laying it on thick today,” he mutters, checking something on the patient’s chart.

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“You’re welcome,” he says. “For being a _great_ colleague.”

He continues walking down the hallway toward his next patient and after a moment, he hears Steve’s voice, loud and indignant.

“I didn’t ask for that!”

“You can find some way to pay me back later!” he calls, without looking back.

Behind him, there’s loud scoffing and the sounds of Steve’s brain probably short-circuiting out of rage. Bucky smirks, although Steve can’t see it.

  
The next patient they see together is a middle-aged man who is complaining of abdominal pain. After checking for appendicitis and coming up negative, Bucky orders a urinalysis and an abdominal x-ray for what he suspects is kidney stones.

“Nurse Rogers will set you up with the tests,” Bucky says to the man after explaining that his pain is not typical with what they would expect of appendicitis. “In the meantime, I’m going to increase the dosage of pain medication to help manage your pain. Does that sound all right?”

The man, looking wan and on the verge of passing out, nods vigorously.

“Nurse Rogers can basically do _everything_ I can’t, so if you have any questions, he’s your absolute best bet,” Bucky says with a smile. “I’ll just say yes to whatever he diagnoses.”

This time Steve doesn’t wait to follow him out.

“What are you doing?” he hisses.

“Explaining procedure to a patient?” Bucky says, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Barnes,” Steve glares. “What are you up to? Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re just a little paranoid?” Bucky says to Steve, holding his index finger and his thumb close together.

“You’re up to something,” Steve says, ignoring that and following Bucky down the hallway. “And I’m going to find out what it is.”

“And then what?” Bucky asks.

There’s a moment of silence.

“What?”

“After you figure out my nefarious plan,” Bucky says, trying to suppress a grin. “What are you going to do _after_?”

“I’ll—” Steve says and stops, frowning. “Well, obviously what I’ll do is—”

Bucky doesn’t laugh, but it’s sure not easy to keep a straight face.

“Okay, great,” he says. He stops abruptly and turns around. Steve nearly runs into him, although he catches himself before they collide.

“What the hell!” he exclaims and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“You tell me when you get it figured out,” Bucky says. “We can talk about it over lunch.”

Steve’s eyes widen, his face absolutely wracked with confusion.

“ _What?_ ”

“I look forward to it,” Bucky says with a sunny smile and pats Steve on the shoulder. “Just shoot me a page and I’ll save us a table. Until then, I gotta pee. See you later, Stevie!”

Steve’s face covers the full spectrum of human emotion as he works his jaw, his neck coloring pink, his eyes wide and flashing and his mouth open, gaping.

Bucky snickers into his own hand as he lets himself into the men’s room.

In the distance he hears, once more, much too late, “ _I didn’t ask for that!_ ”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some of my FAVORITE banter. I'm delighted. I hope it tickled you too!!


	15. Chapter Fifteen. [ fifth oddity: medical ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It comes to him five lifetimes too late and at the weirdest possible juncture—here, in an alternate reality, with a Steve as prickly as a fucking cactus, looking like he used to when they were younger, but _better_ —healthier and livelier—who until 45 seconds ago had wanted nothing better than to stick a syringe in Bucky’s eyeball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we're at CHAPTER FIFTEEN, which is both a large number, but also only five chapters away from finishing!! Thank you to all who have been joining us for the ride and who have taken the time to share how much they've enjoyed the ride! This is a weird and hopefully fun fic and I hope that has vibed with some of you in any way you needed for it to. ♥
> 
>  **cw:** scene of a hospital death, scene of a panic attack

Bucky does not get a page from Steve for the rest of that day. He has the following day off and then he has two shifts in a row this weekend, which is probably not the sign of a healthy work-life balance, but also Bucky’s kind of having fun being a physician in this world for as long as he’s in it.

He comes into the hospital after lunch on Saturday to find that Steve’s halfway through his shift already. Still, once Bucky begins checking in on the patients on his docket, Steve is in the room with him almost every time and although he doesn’t actively hiss at him this time, he does give Bucky a suspicious look every time he opens his mouth.

They make it through the afternoon without too much incident and by the time the sky starts to get dark outside, Bucky’s tired and his feet ache and, if the dark circles under Steve’s eyes are anything to go by, he’s even worse off.

Bucky buys two coffees from the hospital cafeteria and shuffles over to the nurse’s station, which is deserted except for Steve staring blankly at his computer.

Bucky leans over the counter, hand outstretched.

It takes a moment for Steve to register that there’s someone hovering over him and another moment to register _who_ it is that is doing the hovering.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, blinking and then immediately narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“Okay, I can’t keep doing this,” Bucky says. “Can you just take the coffee? My hand is burning.”

Steve’s look of suspicion doesn’t lessen, but he does reach for the coffee after a moment.

“Why are you giving me coffee?”

“Because you’re on the eleventh hour of a twelve hour shift and look like you’re about to fall face forward into your computer monitor,” Bucky says.

Steve scowls.

“I don’t look like that.”

“Sorry, my mistake, I must have been seeing things when I saw you hit your head on the screen earlier,” Bucky says dryly.

Steve flushes.

“That was an accident!”

“Oh my god, Steve,” Bucky says with a laugh. “Can you just accept a nice gesture? I was getting coffee and I wanted to get you coffee. So now you have coffee.”

Steve grumbles unhappily, but he does lift the cup to his mouth after a moment.

“Thanks,” he says, his voice barely discernible.

“I wanted to thank you,” Bucky says, after a moment.

Steve doesn’t immediately reply. Then he says, “For what?”

“All of your work,” Bucky says. He takes a gulp of his own hot coffee. “You’ve been working your ass off and I want you to know that I’ve noticed.”

“Oh well if _you’ve_ noticed,” Steve says waspishly. “That is what I live for, your _approval_. If I don’t get _your_ validation, whatever will I do?”

Bucky stares at Steve over his coffee.

“Holy shit,” he says.

“What?” Steve asks, annoyed.

“You’re an _ass_ ,” Bucky says.

Steve’s mouth falls open and Bucky shakes his head.

“I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt because like—you’re a great fucking nurse and you obviously care about your patients and you get along well enough with Clint and Loki and the other nurses, but holy shit, you are a fucking _dick_.”

Steve’s face colors, his expression contorted with anger and—Bucky thinks—maybe embarrassment.

“How dare—” Steve starts, but Bucky cuts him off and straightens.

“I am trying my hardest here to be nice to you and to connect and you won’t give me a fucking chance,” Bucky says. “I don’t know what I did to you or why you look like you want to strangle me with an IV line every time you see me, but I don’t deserve this. Jesus. Enjoy your coffee, I’m out.”

Bucky turns around with his coffee in hand and starts to walk down the hall. He’s a bit peeved and he thinks he’ll just spend the rest of his break in the staff room watching mindless TV instead of trying to fix whatever the fuck’s wrong here.

He’s just crossed the hallway and is about to enter the staff room, when he hears his name.

“Dr. Barnes!”

Bucky slows.

“Bucky,” Steve says and he sounds a little winded, like he was running down the hallway to catch up to him.

Bucky stops and turns and Steve _is_ pink-faced and puffing.

“Jesus, slow down, you’re going to aggravate your asthma, you little shit,” Bucky says, hand on Steve’s shoulder, immediately concerned.

Steve sucks in a breath and looks up, momentarily confused. Bucky realizes too late that he’s been too familiar, but luckily he doesn’t have to explain.

Steve just shakes his head and says, “I’m sorry.”

Bucky looks at him in surprise.

“What?”

Steve glares up at him, but then catches himself again. He sighs and shakes his head.

“You’re right,” he says, although it’s a bit through grit teeth. “I—you’re trying and I’m. I was a dick.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow and Steve rolls his eyes.

“I’m _being_ a dick,” he says.

“Is there a reason...for it?” Bucky asks. “Why do you hate me?”

Steve looks at him strangely, almost cautiously. Almost like he doesn’t understand why Bucky’s saying what he’s saying or what angle he’s playing from.

“I—thought we hated each other,” he says. “When we—both started together. You were such a pompous dick that day, answering every question, talking over everyone. Talking over me. Your attitude toward nurses—”

Bucky stares at him.

“ _That’s_ why you hate me?” he asks incredulously. “Because I made a bad first impression?”

Steve crosses his arms at his chest.

“You were a _tool!_ ” he says.

“I was _nervous_!” Bucky replies.

Steve’s glower doesn’t lessen. Well, initially. Then, after a moment, he looks more hesitant.

“I thought you were competing with me,” he says. Then awkwardly rolls his shoulder. “No...I thought you didn’t think I was...good enough to be your competition.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

Jesus _fucking Christ_.

If Steve wouldn’t immediately take it the exact wrong way, Bucky would laugh because this—all of this—hating someone and rejecting them because he thinks that _they_ think he isn’t _good enough_ is so quintessentially Steve that Bucky feels like he’s going to pass out.

Whatever tension he had been carrying in his chest these past few days suddenly eases. It’s like a weight lifting off his shoulders, something loosening within him. No matter the world, no matter the reality, Steve will _always_ be Steve. And the knowledge is so fucking comforting, Bucky’s nearly giddy with it.

“No, you idiot—” Bucky says and then hastily raises his hands when Steve’s expression flickers. “Sorry, force of habit. Steve, no. I’ve never thought that. I mean I don’t think we’re in competition to begin with because we work in a _hospital_ to like, help people, and I’m not a psychopath, but if we _were_ in competition, I wouldn’t count you out.”

Steve’s expression—stormy at first, starts to clear.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. This time he does laugh. “Steve, you are terrifyingly competent. I mean it. I wasn’t laying it on thick earlier, you are the best fucking nurse we have. Your attention to detail and your breadth of knowledge and your _certainty_ —I can’t imagine leaving our patients with better care. You’re incredible. Your work is _incredible_.”

Steve’s face starts to glow pink, as it always does when he tips over into embarrassment.

“I didn’t mean—” he stumbles through his words. He stops and sighs, clearly embarrassed now, and runs his hands through his floppy blond hair. “I mean not a competition like _that_. I care about our patients more than anything, I didn’t think—I just meant. I wanted you to think—”

Bucky smiles.

“I know,” he says, genuinely. “And I do. Jesus, I respect the hell out of you.”

Steve looks so hilariously off-kilter and wrong-footed that Bucky nearly starts to laugh again. He doesn’t, though, which is just as well, because Steve is so cute when he’s all pink and his hair is sticking up everywhere and it would be a shame to put an early end to that.

“Well I—” Steve says and takes a breath. He’s so pink his skin color would register on the color wheel if someone held a swatch up to his face. “You too. Terrifyingly competent. And all that. Respect. And the such.”

Bucky grins. No, it’s not just a grin, it is a _goofy grin_. He’s so enamoured with this stupid fucking punk and his dumbass brain which is always getting in his own damn way and how of course the only reason Steve would _actually_ be a dick to someone is if he thought they were underestimating him in some manner.

His best friend is so fucking _annoying_ that Bucky would strangle him if he wasn’t crazy about him.

Wait.

Bucky’s easy grin suddenly freezes in place, his eyes widening.

Steve, looking terribly abashed, but also like he’s trying to keep the grin off his face, scratches his nose.

Bucky’s chest—traitorous and useless as it is—comes to life, like an engine sputtering to a start.

_Wait._

It happens all at once, everything beginning together. His heart thudding in his chest, sudden nerves making him choke; the way that his brain is buzzing with something—something so simple, something so _stupid_.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He’s crazy about him, Bucky realizes.

Bucky Barnes, a whole idiot, is crazy about Steve Rogers.

It comes to him five lifetimes too late and at the weirdest possible juncture—here, in an alternate reality, with a Steve as prickly as a fucking cactus, looking like he used to when they were younger, but _better_ —healthier and livelier—who until 45 seconds ago had wanted nothing better than to stick a syringe in Bucky’s eyeball.

It comes to him in the middle of a hospital in the middle of the night, with a Steve who isn’t _his_ Steve, but is _a_ Steve—as though they aren’t all his Steves, as though Steve, by being _Steve_ , could ever _not_ be _his_ Steve—not because he looks particularly handsome or because he’s being particularly sweet, but precisely and exactly because he is so fucking exasperating that no one in any universe will ever drive Bucky half as crazy as Steve, just _standing_ there will.

It’s stupid for this to be the thing—for _that_ to be why the lightbulb flickers on in his head—the spark in his spine, the flame catching at the end of a matchstick—but once he thinks about it, once Bucky says to himself _oh, I am crazy about Steve_ , it makes a home for itself in a part of himself he had mistakenly thought had rusted shut.

Of course he loves Steve Rogers, he thinks. Of course, he always has.

This Steve looks at him weirdly, maybe a bit nervously. Maybe it’s because Bucky’s eyes are bugging out of his fucking skull.

“So we’re...okay?” Steve asks.

Bucky, staring at him like a crazy person, thinking only: if he, Bucky Barnes, a whole idiot, is crazy about Steve Rogers, then why the _hell_ had he, Bucky Barnes, a whole idiot, _rejected_ Steve Rogers when he had tried to _do something about it_. Before all of this. Before he had taken the stones and disappeared.

“Dr. Barnes…” Steve says, nervously and then, “...Bucky?”

Bucky tries to reel his thoughts in. It’s a bit like trying to herd a bunch of cats back into a poorly constructed bag, but he manages. Only because Steve looks like he will either cry or sock Bucky in the jaw if he doesn’t say something in the next five seconds.

That’s comforting, in a way.

Bucky gives Steve a smile while losing what’s left of his whole mind.

“Yeah, Steve,” he says. “We’re okay.”

*

Everything about the patient is difficult.

Thor has performed coronary bypass surgery on more than one occasion, both before he’s arrived in this reality and even after he’s slotted into the life of Dr. Thor Odinson. The cases differ in difficulty depending on the patient’s profile and how severe the blockage is, but one thing remains constant no matter how difficult or easy the case—bypass surgery is technical, grueling, and almost always nervy.

Still, Thor wouldn’t have become a surgeon if he couldn’t keep his head under pressure.

The quadruple bypass surgery lasts almost six hours in this case and it isn’t easy. The patient is an older man with a medical history so colorful it could easily have been created by the National Board of Medical Examiners to torture medical students taking their board exams.

The first problem is that his blockage is so severe, the patient had been admitted to the Emergency Room after having already suffered a heart attack. He hadn’t responded particularly well to the other treatments and Thor had consulted with T’Challa quickly as the decision had been made.

The second problem is that he had high, nearly uncontrolled diabetes, which had worked to erode his liver, and his kidneys weren’t doing particularly well either, to say nothing of how often he had been admitted to the hospital in the past because of fluid build up in his lungs.

He has a doctor for each organ in his body and none of them are doing hot.

The patient is a fucking mess.

He also won’t stop bleeding during open heart surgery.

Thor is tense throughout the entire procedure and he isn’t the only one. The theater, which is by no means usually a cheerful environment during surgeries, is particularly tense today, the air thick with nerves. Thor and Okoye work quietly and meticulously together, in tandem, while the anesthesiologist, a young man named Dr. Altman-Kaplan, checks on the patient to make sure he’s properly sedated, and Loki and Wanda work in the background to hand supplies and aid the surgeons as efficiently as possible.

They have to staunch internal bleeding more than once and at least twice, the patient’s breathing seems so labored, they have to stop the procedure to make sure he isn’t having a reaction to the anesthesia.

Grueling isn’t the word for it. It’s brutal and by the time Thor and Okoye step back from the table, the graft complete, and Loki and Wanda move forward to take care of post-op clean up and move the patient back to the intensive care unit, Thor is nearly shaking from exhaustion.

“Come on,” Okoye tells him, although she herself sounds unsteady. “Let us clean up and find something to eat.”

Thor doesn’t even look back to check on Loki this time. He’s so drained and strangely anxious that he just nods.

“The report can wait until after dinner,” he says and follows her out of the theater and toward the washing room.

  
The thing is, the sense of unease lingers. He’s not sure what it is. Call it doctor’s intuition, but he feels discomfited by the patient and how difficult the surgery had been, even though he knows that, logically, he and his team had performed to the best of their abilities.

The feeling stays during dinner and lingers even as he’s dictating—he’s too tired to even attempt to decompress by writing out his notes this evening—each step of the surgery for his report.

It stays with him as he checks on the patient that evening and Wanda tells him that he’s stable, but that his temperature is higher than she’d like for it to be.

So when his beeper suddenly goes off and the emergency call is put out over the speakers as his patient starts to code, Thor feels the blood drain from his face, but he can’t say that he is particularly surprised. He leaves the staff room quickly, knocking his bottle of water to the ground as he goes, and by the time he’s crossed the entire ward to the patient’s room, Bucky and Steve are already in there, trying to resuscitate the dying man.

Thor’s breath catches in his throat and he feels his fingers go numb, his brain whiting out with panic. He’s rooted to place, frozen with shock, as Wanda joins them in the emergency, providing support as Steve works quickly and efficiently, helping Bucky with chest compressions, trying to get the patient’s heart back online.

He hears the hurried, firm voices from inside as Bucky and Steve try everything within their powers to save him. The machine beeping so loudly it’s nearly screaming, the raised, frantic voices inside the room, the sound of Thor’s heart thudding in his ears—roaring, thunderous—and Thor doesn’t realize he’s stopped breathing altogether until he feels a firm hand on his upper arm.

His brain is nearly blank with panic at this point, so he doesn’t resist as the person tugs on him, firmly leading him away from the coding patient, fingers curled tightly around his arm, nails digging in so hard that the pain is the only thing left to ground Thor.

He’s steered through the ward, past the staff room, and out the door. He’s shoved into a stairwell and then led down two flights of stairs until the door is pushed open and then he’s dragged out into the cool evening air. The fresh air hits him like a punch to his lungs and apparently that’s all he needed because he immediately crumples to his knees, his hands clutching his head, and then the person is down there next to him too, a hand on his back, a hand in his hair, and a familiar voice whispering, _It’s okay, breathe. It’s okay, I understand. It’s going to be okay. Thor. Thor? Listen to me, can you hear me?_

Mid-panic attack, Thor’s heart is racing so fast he can barely choke out the breaths, so the person wraps his fingers around Thor’s wrist and tugs one of Thor’s hands away from his head and places it on the other man’s chest.

“Thor, listen to me,” he says. “Can you feel my heartbeat? The rise and fall of my chest. Follow it. Come on.”

Thor doesn’t know what he means for a second, his mind is so white with panic, but then the other man breathes in and out exaggeratedly, his chest puffing up and falling so dramatically that it distracts Thor—just as it’s meant to.

“There you go,” the other man says. “In and out with me. Come on. Yes, that’s right. In again. And out. Once more, follow me.”

Thor inhales when the other man does and exhales when he does. The other man takes in a breath and Thor follows him. He exhales and Thor pushes air out of his lungs.

It takes a monumental amount of effort, but it works. After a few minutes of Thor following his lead and the other man murmuring quiet words of encouragement to him, Thor’s head begins to clear.

“Loki,” he gasps out and Loki nods, seeming relieved.

“Yes,” he says. “It’s me. Are you all right? Don’t stop breathing.”

“Loki,” Thor grinds out again and then—even though this isn’t his Loki and even though they’re barely more than strangers here, just two men feeling each other out, Thor pushes forward into Loki’s chest, presses his face into Loki’s neck, and after a moment, Loki wordlessly wraps his arms around Thor and strokes the back of his hair until Thor calms all the way back down.

  
“What happened?” Loki asks.

They sit against the wall outside of the hospital, Loki lighting up a cigarette and offering it to Thor.

Thor takes it from him gratefully and puts it to his mouth. He doesn’t like the smell of smoke or the taste of it, but he does like the act of inhaling it and then exhaling it back out. It’s soothing, which isn’t a good enough reason to develop a nicotine addiction, but he supposes that one cigarette after a panic attack isn’t going to send him to the oncologist just yet.

“I don’t know,” Thor says, his voice raspier than usual.

“You’ve lost patients before,” Loki says. He’s not mean about it. He says it gently, but straightforward: a fact, which it is.

“Yes,” Thor agrees. He leans his head back against the building.

“You did everything you could,” Loki says. “I watched you. Your procedure was unimpeachable. The patient was as difficult as one could be. It wasn’t your fault.”

It hangs strangely between them, that phrase: _it wasn’t your fault_.

It’s strange for Thor to hear and it’s even stranger for him to hear it from Loki.

“Sometimes, I think it is,” he says. It takes something from him to admit it out loud, his voice shaking, his heart erratic in his chest.

Loki says nothing for a moment.

“Do you think it is or is it actually?” he asks.

That startles Thor. He turns his head slightly toward Loki, who’s looking up at the trees.

“It’s easy to blame yourself for everything,” he says. “To say this entire thing was my fault and I am bad and I deserve every bad thing that happens to me as a result.”

Thor frowns.

“Do you know what’s harder? What takes more guts?” Loki asks. He tilts his head toward Thor and Thor’s breath catches in his chest. Loki, his green eyes glittering brightly in the dark.

“What?” Thor asks. He takes a breath and offers the cigarette back to Loki.

Loki gives him a lazy smile and takes it from him.

“To admit to yourself that you’ve done the best you can and sometimes that just isn’t enough,” he says.

Oh, Thor thinks.

“But that doesn’t make it your fault.”

His chest feels waterlogged, his throat thick.

“I don’t know what you’re blaming yourself for, Thor,” Loki says after a minute. “Something happened back there and it wasn’t related to Mr. Bartok.”

A ship in the sky. Bodies strewn across a deck. Bodies burning. A purple fist closing around a pale neck.

“I’m tired of losing people,” Thor says. “I’m tired of it being my fault.”

“Don’t be a coward,” Loki says. He lifts the cigarette to his mouth and inhales.

Thor watches him closely.

“ _Was_ it your fault?” Loki asks.

Thor knows his answer.

A ship in the sky. Bodies strewn across a deck. Bodies burning.

A purple fist closing around a pale—

No.

Green eyes meeting his. An apology that is never said out loud.

_I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again._

The thing about blaming yourself for everything is that you forget that other people make their own choices. The truth is that Thor couldn’t have stopped Thanos from finding them. The truth is he couldn’t have stopped Heimdall from charging at him.

The truth is that Loki, once his mind was made up, could not have been saved.

So what is the truth?

 _Was it your fault?_ this Loki asks.

And the answer that Thor knows; the answer that he has been afraid to admit is this:

“No,” Thor exhales. He draws his knees up to his chest and for the first time in a very long time, tells the truth. “No, Loki. It wasn’t all my fault. I just couldn’t stop it from happening.”

  
They sit in silence for long enough that Thor’s skin starts to grow cold. Loki finishes his cigarette and grinds it under the heel of his shoes.

He turns toward Thor, his eyes shining again, a loose smile on his lips.

“I used to be a piece of shit,” he says. “Maybe I still am, I don’t know. I got a lot of chances in life and finally, one day, I got sick of myself and took someone up on one.”

“Loki?” Thor asks, quietly.

“You’re good, Thor,” Loki says. “You are painfully, achingly good.”

Loki’s fingers on Thor’s knee, Loki leaning in close to him. Loki vibrant and alive and warm on this chilly, terrible night.

“How do you know?” Thor murmurs. He watches him closely. His eyes at Loki’s mouth.

Loki’s mouth curving up at the corners.

“If you weren’t, I wouldn’t want to ruin you,” he says.

A shiver runs down Thor’s spine. His fingers on Loki’s wrist.

They say nothing, a quiet between them that is so still it’s almost delicate. Thor, watching Loki’s bright eyes, the wrinkle between his brows, the way his lips quirk up at the corners.

Thor, losing everything and finding it all in the same moment.

Loki leans forward and Thor—his breath catching in his throat—his head buzzing—cups a hand to Loki’s face, and meets his mouth with his own.

  
**art:** Loki leaning forward and kissing Thor; **art by:** nalonzooo

*

It doesn’t make sense. The patient does well in surgery and is moved back to his room for what they expect will be a moderately easy recovery. Five hours after the procedure, she’s resting, but stable. It’s the sixth hour where things start to go wrong.

“She looks worse,” Bucky says, checking Mrs. Bidwell’s chart for post-op statistics and details. Her pallor is sickly, pale and waxy, her forehead sweaty, little tremors running down her arms.

“Yeah, I have eyes,” Steve leaning close to her to check her temperature, snaps at him.

“Was she awake earlier?” Bucky ignores Steve’s tone and taps on her IV line to make sure it’s administering medicine properly.

“Yeah,” Steve mutters. He pulls the thermometer away. “She doesn’t have a fever. Could it be an infection?”

“She’s on antibiotics,” Bucky murmurs, looking at her chart again.

Next to them, the heart monitor gives a sharp little beep and Bucky’s frown deepens. He doesn’t like this.

“Her heart rate is too elevated,” he says. He worries at his bottom lip.

“Is your job just to state the obvious?” Steve says waspishly. “If I’d known medical school was that easy, I would have opted for that instead.”

“Can you cool it?” Bucky says, sharply. Annoyed, he tries to wrack his brain for a possible reason. It _could_ be a post-op infection. It could be something left inside the patient. It could be a reaction to something. Bucky won’t find an answer by standing here, dithering.

“What do you want me to do then?” Steve asks stiffly.

Bucky sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“Okay,” he says. “Blood tests. CBC. PTT. Check for possible infections. We don’t want something like sepsis to take us by surprise.”

Steve grunts, but he writes down the orders.

“She was fine earlier,” he says, stopping at the doorway. He looks piqued, but Bucky thinks that’s just a mask for his worry. Steve is worried.

“It’ll be okay, Steve,” Bucky says. “We’ll monitor her and adjust.”

Steve looks at Mrs. Bidwell for a moment longer and then back at Bucky. His expression is inscrutable. Finally, he gives a short nod and shuffles out of the room to bring back what he needs to take the blood tests.

Bucky turns back to Mrs. Bidwell and frowns. There’s something about her symptoms that don’t add up to him. The problem is, he can’t seem to figure out what.

  
She gets worse. Bucky checks back in with her over the next few hours and despite the antibiotics, she seems to grow paler. She’s shivering, her skin is clammy. Her stats are declining.

“Do you think someone _could_ have left something in her...during surgery?” Bucky asks, his voice tight.

He hopes it wasn’t Thor.

“Maybe,” Clint says, next to him.

They’re looking into the room through the window, where Steve is fretting by her bedside.

“It’s not out of the question,” Clint says. “You’re going to have to report it if it is. And get Natasha.”

“Natasha?” Bucky repeats.

Clint gives him a sympathetic look.

“If we’re going to get sued for malpractice, she has to know,” he says.

Bucky winces and hopes it doesn’t come to that. He looks inside and Steve is changing out one of her IV bags.

Mrs. Bidwell lets out a shaky breath. She’s awake now, but her eyes are glassy, unfocused. The signs of her deterioration are worrisome. And rapid.

He _really_ hopes it doesn’t come to that.

  
He’s checking up on another patient who just has a broken femur when his beeper goes off. Bucky pulls away to check it and lets out a curse under his breath. It’s from Clint.

FURY ON ROUNDS. MRS. BIDWELL NEXT.

“Is everything all right?” the young skateboarder with the broken bone says, clearly concerned by the way Bucky’s turned a shade of purple that would rival Thanos if they were lining up for mug shots.

“No. Climate change is a bitch and I have to go,” Bucky says and puts his beeper away. “If your leg starts to hurt again, page your nurse.”

  
Dr. Nicholas J. Fury is just as much of a hardass bastard as his SHIELD counterpart. He’s down a secret government agency and up an entire division of the hospital, which is to say that he has been the hospital’s Chief of Medicine for nearly two decades now. It’s a position he’s earned by being one of the steadiest and most successful physicians in the hospital’s history, but also by using his single eyeball to glare anyone who defies him into submission.

That is also to say that getting reamed out by Fury is not uncommon and it’s usually for a good reason, but it’s not often _pleasant_.

When he’s angry, his eye narrows and his nostrils flare and he’s one stupid medical error away from breathing fire.

Mrs. Bidwell is doing so poorly that Bucky prepares for the dragon, but secretly just hopes he has the answer.

“Tell me everything you’ve done,” Fury says to Bucky and Steve as he checks the patient’s vitals and chart. His eyes narrow, his words through grit teeth. His nostrils flaring just at the edges.

Bucky takes a breath and starts to go through his notes.

  
It occurs to him halfway through delivering the report.

He’s looking at Mrs. Bidwell’s chart when he sees the designation: _diabetic: type one_.

His eyes widen as it clicks.

“What?” Fury asks, sensing he’s figured something out. “What is it?”

Steve, at Bucky’s elbow, looking over his shoulder at the chart, sees it as Bucky’s finger brushes the diagnosis. He freezes, his breathing becoming shallower.

“The patient has Type One Diabetes, sir,” Bucky says.

Fury’s eyebrow raises.

“And?”

“The patient’s vitals are declining because—” Bucky is embarrassed for them to have fucked up such a basic thing, but he wants to laugh in relief. Oh god, this is fixable. _This is fixable_.

“She’s been given insulin,” Steve’s voice has a slight tremor in it as he speaks. “Twice. She’s hypoglycemic.”

Fury’s nostrils flare.

“Giving a _diabetic_ insulin _twice_ ,” he growls. “After surgery. Of all of the stupid, lazy, _careless_ medical errors. What do we even have charts for if you idiots don’t use them?”

Both Bucky and Steve know better than to say anything.

“Why the fuck do we make you write reports? I mean it. Why don’t you just turn your brains off and watch reruns of Friends since that’s about as much medical knowledge as you have between the two of you—”

Steve flinches next to Bucky and Bucky, suddenly, feels a sharp spike of protective instinct.

“Sir—” Steve begins.

Steve, who had administered both doses of insulin.

Steve, who had been the one to fuck up.

Steve, who’s turning scarlet and nearly shaking out of distress. It’s not just that he’s getting read by the boss, it’s that they had almost lost a patient because of him.

“It was my fault,” Bucky blurts out.

Steve’s fingers close on his forearm, sharply, but Bucky ignores him.

“I got careless,” he says. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Nurse Rogers has been meticulous at each step, sir. I looked at the chart and didn’t read it all the way through.”

“Is that right, Dr. Barnes?” Fury asks, swiveling toward him.

“It is,” Bucky says. “I was tired, I don’t know.”

“Barnes,” Steve tries to whisper, but Bucky shakes him off.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It was a stupid, careless rookie mistake. It won’t happen again. I’ll get her some glucose to raise her sugar levels back up.”

Fury’s nostrils are still flaring. On a scale of 1 to sending Bucky to the coroner in a body bag of his own, Bucky will probably get chewed out later, but won’t lose his license or anything.

“Come by my office later, Dr. Barnes,” Fury says finally. He nods at Steve. “Nurse Rogers, administer the glucose and keep an eye on the patient. Make sure she remains stable and when she wakes up, get her a fruit cup.”

Steve’s mouth is open and Bucky knows—he fucking _knows_ the idiot is about to confess, but Bucky elbows him sharply and Steve lets out a grunt of pain.

“Yes, sir,” Steve wheezes.

Fury glares at both of them and then, satisfied, turns on his heels and moves on to the next patient.

The two of them say nothing for a moment and then Bucky exhales, all of the tension draining from his body.

“Jesus,” he says.

“Barnes,” Steve starts, but Bucky shakes his head.

“Don’t,” he says. “We’re a team. I wasn’t going to throw you under the bus.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” Steve says. “ _I_ fucked up.”

“Steve, I don’t care,” Bucky says. “She’s my patient too, I should have seen it and realized it like three hours ago.”

“But—”

“Stop. Let’s just—fix her.”

Steve looks like he’s still of the mind to argue and, knowing him, he probably _is_ , but Bucky’s tired and he just wants to make sure Mrs. Bidwell is taken care of.

“You get the glucose tube and I’ll get the fruit cup,” he says.

He claps Steve on the shoulder and before Steve can say anything else, he turns too and quickly follows after Fury.

  
Bucky has three patients who need slight medication changes and he’s too antsy to make any of the nurses do it for him. He’s itching to do _something_ , a restless buzzing under his skin. Maybe it was Fury glaring at him or maybe it was almost losing a patient due to stupid medical error. It’s left him feeling unsettled; almost anxious.

The truth is, they’ve been in this reality longer than they’ve been in any of the others, with no sign of any shards and no other way to force themselves into the next universe or back home. It makes him feel nervous, as though they’re stuck in a glass case with no door to let them back out.

It’s not that he minds it here, but even a happy vacation is just that: a vacation. No one is meant to stay on vacation forever.

As fucked up as their own world is and as much as they have left to fix, it’s still _theirs_. He’s starting to feel a little worn down around the edges, battered and bruised as they’re flung around the multiverse, like one of those tiny metal balls in a pinball machine.

They’ve been away long enough. He misses home.

He misses _Steve_. His Steve.

He texts Thor and tells him he’ll meet him for dinner later and adjusts his stethoscope as he unlocks the supply closet. The door closes softly behind him and he stares blankly at the different bins of medical equipment, protective gear, and medication before shaking his head and walking down the length of the room toward a row of bins at the back.

He’s written down which sachets of pills he’s looking for and it takes him a few minutes to go through the inventory to find them, but the knowledge is nestled in the back of his head.

“Ah,” he says softly as he pulls the one labeled _metformin_. He grabs two sachets of the pills, passes a bin of syringes and another bin of gauze, before finding a bin of the blood thinners he’s looking for.

“We’ll see if Miss Ramos likes these any better.”

It’s as he’s selecting two packets that he sees it.

“Oh,” he says, inhaling sharply.

His heart beats faster in excitement. Buried in the bin, behind a handful of packets of pills, there’s something glowing blue.

“Fuck,” Bucky says out loud and that’s when he hears the door lock behind him.

It’s like a shock to his system, a jolt of adrenaline and hyper awareness that he’s embarrassed to have recently neglected. It has been a very long time since Bucky Barnes has been so distracted that he hasn’t noticed someone sneak up on him.

His blood pulses in his ears and he assesses himself in the split second between the click of the lock and the feeling of someone’s hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t have any knives on him—stupid, Barnes, fucking _stupid_ —but he does have a syringe in his hand and he’s ready to find a way to jam it into the person’s carotid.

The hand wheels him around and Bucky has less than a second now to aim the wrapped—stupid, Barnes, _fucking stupid as shit_ —syringe, but he’s either too slow or Steve is too fast, because before Bucky can do anything, before he can even _blink_ , Steve has shoved him against the rack behind him.

“Steve?” Bucky gasps, his back hitting the bins behind him and rattling the entire metal shelf.

“You drive me _crazy_ ,” Steve says, his voice low and barely controlled.

Bucky’s eyes widen. His brain is still assessing the threat, but the cognitive dissonance between the red flags going off inside his head and Steve in front of him— _Steve_ —is too great and all he can do is gape like a fish out of water.

Steve, for his part, doesn’t seem to have any weapons on him or, for that matter, anything that can be construed as a threat.

He’s just seething. He’s _heated_.

His hands are curled around the lapels of Bucky’s white coat.

“You don’t listen to me,” Steve growls. “You decide things for me. You show off. You take the blame for _my_ fuck up and make me look good in front of Fury when you have _no right_ to do that.”

Bucky knows he’s running on like half of his usual brain capacity currently, but he doesn’t understand.

“What?” he says, dumbly.

“You couldn’t have just let me hate you?” Steve says. He’s clearly pissed. He hasn’t let go. “You had to be a _good guy_ on top of it all?”

“Steve…” Bucky says, his eyes still wide. Breathing a little faster than he should.

“I cannot fucking _stand_ you,” Steve says.

Bucky swallows. Steve’s so close. He’s a full head shorter than Bucky, the top of his floppy blond head grazing just past Bucky’s chin. He’s small and he’s barely contained and Bucky can feel the heat off of him and suddenly his head is ringing and his blood is simmering and his throat is dry.

Bucky’s eyes flicker down to Steve’s mouth.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Barnes,” Steve says.

Bucky’s eyes look back up, guilty.

“I hate you,” Steve says. “Bucky.”

Then his fingers slide up Bucky’s lapel to curl around the back of Bucky’s neck, and he drags him down to kiss him.

  
**art:** Steve angrily pulling Bucky in by the stethoscope and kissing him; **art by:** nalonzooo

Bucky’s head is full of clouds and his spine is the spark of a lighter just before it catches on fire. He gasps against Steve’s mouth and when that only makes Steve pull him closer, Bucky wraps an arm around his back and easily lifts him up, until Steve’s wrapped his legs around his middle and Bucky’s stumbling forward to hold Steve up against the nearest pillar.

They knock into some medical carts on the way, syringes and tape going scattering across the floor. Bucky ignores this and Steve pays it no attention at all, his hand scraping through Bucky’s hair, undoing the bun at the back of his head, and Bucky’s holding onto him so tightly, his fingers must be digging into Steve’s back.

Steve doesn’t complain. They adjust their mouths so their teeth aren’t knocking together, someone opening just enough for the other to work his way in and Bucky’s blood is racing and his heart is racing and his head is racing too, except for his thoughts, which are miraculously, blissfully blank.

They finally make it to a wall and Steve lets out a little puff of a grunt as Bucky slams him against it and shifts him to hold him up better.

“Shit,” Bucky says and tries to pull away to apologize, but Steve just growls and grabs his stethoscope to pull him back.

“Shut up,” Steve says. “I need you to shut up.”

Bucky’s only too happy to oblige. Steve closes the inch between them again and they kiss furiously, their mouths open and working together, tongues sliding against each other, kiss until their breaths are knocked out of them, their lungs sweetly aching for air, and Bucky’s mouth is sore, but he’s unwilling to pull away, unwilling to break this thing that is making a drunk out of him.

Bucky’s head spins and Steve pants into his mouth, their chests heaving together. Bucky holds him up and ignores the ache in his back, the slight burn in his arms, because he’s handled much worse pain and could the pain of anything be half as sweet as this?

Steve’s fingers run down the back of Bucky’s neck and Bucky shivers, until Steve is trying to push at his lab coat insistently, impatiently, and Bucky makes a little noise into his mouth.

“Stop—” he rasps, with great reluctance. “Steve, stop—”

“What?” Steve says, glaring at him. He can barely catch his breath and his eyes are bright, glassy, his cheeks flushed—a pink that’s crawling up his neck, his skin hot with it. “ _What?_ ”

“We can’t—” Bucky says and as Steve opens his mouth to argue, he shuts him up with a hard kiss. “No, shut up. I mean—supply closet. We can’t. Not in here.”

Steve doesn’t seem happy about this.

He distracts himself by tugging on the stethoscope again, dragging Bucky in and swallowing Bucky’s protests with his mouth.

They kiss again for a few minutes, harder this time, hungrier, with a frenetic, desperate edge, and Bucky can’t feel his head for how dizzy it is, for how hard his heart is beating in his chest, and he can tell Steve is the same, can feel how rapidly Steve’s heart is beating, actually, as pressed close together as they are.

It’s dizzy and it’s heady and it’s delicious. Bucky drinks it in, drinks Steve’s kisses in and the feel of his swollen lips and the slightly tangy smell of his skin, and Bucky does feel drunk then, on the warmth of Steve’s skin and the feel of his ribs against Bucky’s palm and the wet heat of his open mouth.

Steve’s fingers are carding through Bucky’s long, loose hair and he lets out a whine so soft that Bucky nearly loses his entire mind, right there, with Steve’s other palm against his stomach and his legs around Bucky’s hips.

When they eventually break apart this time it’s because they both do _desperately_ need to breathe and they’re both so turned on, they’re at a tipping point they can’t cross in a fucking _medical supply closet_. Or, well, shouldn’t, at any rate. Steve lets his head fall back against the pillar and Bucky lets his head fall onto Steve’s shoulder.

“Fuck,” Steve rasps, his voice nearly wrecked.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky agrees.

“He has nothing to do with this,” Steve—the absolute _shit_ —says.

Bucky has to laugh at that. God, his heart is racing again. It’s about to beat right out of his goddamned chest. There’s something else there, though—something light and expansive, bright and vibrant and horrifyingly happy.

 _I’m crazy about him_ , he thinks again.

Again, he has to laugh.

“I can’t believe this,” Steve complains. “I’m so fucking stupid.”

“No, you’re not,” Bucky says fuzzily. He nuzzles Steve’s collarbone, which forces Steve to make a noise Bucky’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have allowed otherwise.

“Shut up,” Steve says. “I hate you.”

“Gotta tell you,” Bucky says. He laughs again. He can’t stop laughing. He’s lost his mind. “It feels like you might not know what that means.”

“Shut _up_!” Steve says again, but this time it’s more of a whine. Bucky hears his head thud back against the pillar again. “How did I let this happen? Sam was right.”

“Sam?” Bucky says, outraged. “Sam Wilson? What’s that asshole gotta do with it?”

“Sam is the best human in the entire world, if you say a single bad thing about him I will stab you in the eyeball with a syringe,” Steve says. _I knew it!_ Bucky thinks, somewhat deliriously. Steve’s clearly glaring again, but Bucky can’t see, so he doesn’t care.

“If you like Sam so much, why don’t you almost bone _him_ in the medical supply closet?” Bucky says.

“Maybe I _will_!” Steve puffs out.

Bucky bites down on Steve’s clavicle and Steve lets out a yelp.

“Ow!”

“You deserved it,” Bucky says.

Steve curses and then, after a moment, taps Bucky’s shoulder to indicate he should be let down.

Reluctant as he is to let Steve go—especially right _now_ —Bucky has to admit his back can’t do this much longer. He gently lets Steve slide down.

They stare at one another for a few seconds before quickly moving to adjust their scrubs and coats and their, ah, other necessary parts.

“If you hadn’t stopped me, I would have,” Steve says.

“Would have what?” Bucky says, blinking.

“Boned you,” Steve says. “Right here. With all of the medical equipment.”

Bucky groans.

“Don’t say that,” he says. “I’m starting to think I’ve made a mistake.”

Steve smirks at him, although the effect is kind of lost, what with his pink flush and rumpled hair and how red and shiny his mouth is. They’re definitely going to get caught out in the next like, sixty seconds, by the first doctor or nurse who needs medical tape, but Bucky can’t help but stare at them again. Steve’s lips.

“Make me angry again and we’ll see what I can do,” Steve says.

“Are you serious?” Bucky says, staring at him. “That’s what gets you going? Is wanting to strangle me?”

“Don’t kinkshame me, Barnes,” Steve says, matter-of-factly. He’s such a little shit that Bucky’s going to strangle _him_.

Someone rattles the door.

“Kiss me again,” Bucky says quickly.

“Bucky, there’s someone—” Steve says and the rattling increases.

“ _Kiss me again, Rogers_ ,” Bucky insists and Steve gets a hand on Bucky’s neck, reaches up on his tiptoes, and presses a hard, lingering kiss to Bucky’s mouth again.

Bucky’s head spins.

It lasts too short a time, but when Steve pulls away, his eyes are glinting, and his hand trails teasingly down Bucky’s neck before he steps back.

It’s the hint of a promise.

It’s fucking torture, is what it is.

“Watch me as I leave,” Steve instructs.

As if Bucky is currently capable of doing anything else.

Steve straightens his scrubs and runs a finger through his hair to half-heartedly comb it through, and, with a smile on his lips, turns. He walks down the length of the supply room toward the door to unlock it, scrubs clinging just right to the swell of his ass.

Bucky does watch him go. Appreciatively.

He traces the outline of him, commits it to memory. His heart beating acutely—painfully—he reaches up to touch his mouth as Steve opens the door.

Bucky hears Clint say something dumb to Steve and Steve reply in a tone that could only be accompanied by a roll of his eyes.

Bucky closes his own eyes. He can still taste Steve on his tongue, feel Steve’s fingers in his hair, on his stomach, on his neck. The endorphins are going to actually kill him. Or the serotonin. Both. Whatever. He can’t stop grinning.

It’s wonderful and it’s heady and it’s achingly terrible at the same time.

He tries to calm his heart down, the racing, piece of shit thing.

He tries not to let it get to him. He tries not to miss someone who isn’t his. Who _is_ his, but isn’t. Can’t be, really.

Someone who he had had a chance to make his and had—fumbled. Just spectacularly fucked up.

Bucky opens his eyes.

He’ll miss this, he thinks. He’ll miss this place and he’ll miss this Steve.

It’s been a lovely interlude, but this place, this Steve, is meant for another Bucky. He hopes that Bucky will realize the truth quicker than he had. He hopes this Steve will drag this Bucky into another supply closet sometime soon.

As for him, he has his own Steve to find.

And, truthfully, he’s getting kind of tired chasing after him.

After he collects himself, Bucky turns on his heel and scans the rows of shelves again. He remembers exactly where he had seen it before he had gotten so thoroughly distracted. He approaches the bin of blood thinners and peers inside.

It twinkles at him, a bright, shining blue.

Bucky takes a breath and with resolve, reaches forward.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IS THAT CHARACTER GROWTH I SEE?? FROM BOTH OF OUR MULTIVERSE DUMBASSES?? 
> 
> I LOVED writing this AU and I feel like, you can probably tell. I've wanted some kind of doctor/nurse SteveBucky AU for literal ages and I guess if you can't find one for yourself, you just have to write it! Thank you to Scrubs, specifically, for allowing me 2 live my fanfiction dreams. I will not be accepting corrections on any/all medical and/or hospital inaccuracies at this time. Thank u.
> 
> ANYWAY, thank you for the love--I can't wait for you guys to see what's up next. ;) ♥


	16. Chapter Sixteen. [ sixth oddity: post-apocalypse ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky can see it better then, in the dim, depressing lighting of the kitchen—the lines around the corners of their mouths, the pinched look between their brows, the weight they’re visibly carrying on their shoulders. There might be some teasing, a wan smile or two, but in the end they’re just hardened, haunted survivors of something unspeakable. 
> 
> “We’re the only ones left,” Clint says and Bucky tries not to panic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday, once again!! Today, I come bearing great news: A SIXTH ODDITY. 
> 
> This is a LONG chapter, so grab your snacks, buckle in, and have some POST-APOCALYPSE for your weekend read. This Oddity involves one of my FAVORITE tropes.......you'll see which. :)
> 
>  **cw:** depictions of violence

There’s a faint light filtering into the room. Bucky’s breathing shifts from the calm, uninterrupted rhythm of someone deep in sleep to the momentary break before consciousness trickles in. He notices the light first, the inconsistency bothering him enough to elicit a soft grumble of discontent. Then he notices the movement.

No, then he notices the lingering warmth.

 _Then_ he notices the movement.

Bucky cracks his eyes open and immediately the world shifts on its axis. It’s lucky that he’s already lying down because the room seems to tilt awkwardly and the tell-tale sign of multiverse travel hits him like a shock to his system—the jolt in his stomach and the dull ache in his head and the way that his fingers feel like they’re tingling at the tips.

If he never falls through the multiverse again, it will be too fucking soon.

Once he swallows his nausea, he’s able to focus on the other thing.

The lingering warmth of a warm body in bed next to him.

Well, previously next to him. Now he sees that the other person is sitting up at the edge of the bed. The sheets have slid off him and Bucky doesn’t have to see the sun glint gold as it hits his messy hair or recognize the divot in the small of his back to know who it is.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, his breathing soft, his voice caught in his throat.

The sun lights on Steve’s bare shoulders, the glow making tough edges appear soft to touch. He doesn’t have the broad supersoldier shoulders, but neither does he have the delicate shoulders Bucky remembers from their youth. His shoulders here are neither large, nor are they small. They are narrow, but they are strong, just as the lines of his back are, the ripples of lean muscle shifting as he sits, back straight, head slightly bent over, his arms braced against the edge of the shitty mattress.

There are scars that Bucky’s never seen before, but remembers fitting his mouth against. There’s a knot of them near his right shoulder, a long scar running down the back of his left arm, a rope of raised skin curving around his left side and ending in the middle of his lower back. There’s a black tattoo stretching from his right shoulder to the middle of his back, a bird of some kind, with wings lifted in flight, a sharp bill, and fire at its feet.

Fire.

A phoenix, Bucky realizes. A black phoenix in flight, a symbol of life, of death, of the tenacity found in survival. A rebirth created in the image of hope. Burn it back down only to begin again.

Bucky had been there when Steve had it inked on him, he remembers. He had held his hand.

Steve sits, tense and still for a minute, as though contemplating something. Bucky’s eyes flicker up and down what he can see and it doesn’t take context clues to understand—Steve’s mussed hair, the slight slump of his shoulders, the sheets sliding off his bare thighs. His bare shoulders and bare chest and bare legs.

Steve, in Bucky’s bed, not wearing a thing.

Bucky, in Bucky’s bed, also not wearing a thing.

Oh, Bucky thinks, his chest suddenly contracting. His throat drying. _Oh._

“You awake?” Steve’s voice interrupts him suddenly. When Bucky doesn’t say anything for a moment—“There’s no use pretending. I can always tell.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says shakily. He tries to swallow and calm the shake of his pulse. “I’m awake.”

“Okay,” Steve says.

There’s something strange in the air that Bucky can’t place—a slight frisson, something tense that Bucky can’t quite explain.

“Were you going to leave without saying anything?” Bucky says. He actually doesn’t know why he says it, but it feels right to say.

Steve’s shoulders suddenly tense. It’s minute, but Bucky knows him—Bucky has known him their entire lives. Anyway, there’s nothing else he’s staring at at the moment.

“I thought it would be better,” Steve says.

Bucky watches the way the muscles near his hips move as he shifts on the bed.

“Better or easier?”

Steve pauses.

“Both,” he says.

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t have a good sense of what’s going on or what’s happened between the two of them in this reality, only that there’s some sort of context he’s missing.

“I thought—” Bucky starts and then stops. Swallows. “I had a nice time.”

Steve says nothing to that, which doesn’t make Bucky bristle per se, but does rankle him enough for him to raise his voice.

“Steve—”

“Stop,” Steve says. His tone is clipped, as though he’s trying his best to keep it steady. “Stop, Bucky. We agreed, remember?”

Bucky doesn’t.

“It’s—we were stressed. We are stressed,” Steve says. “It’s just a way to deal with that, okay? We don’t have to make it more than it is.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Then he can’t help himself. “Which is?”

“A way to pass time,” Steve says and this time gives a low chuckle, completely devoid of mirth. He sounds tired. “Some relief in this...fucked up world.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, carefully. “Just a way to pass time.”

Steve tenses again and Bucky feels strange, like he’s having a fight he’s not entirely aware of. It’s not a fight he wants to be having—either him _or_ the him who is supposed to be living in this reality.

“I’m going to go,” Steve says and stands.

Bucky doesn’t look away. His eyes drift down, taking in every inch of him—the scars on the back of Steve’s legs and the hard muscles of his calves and the swell of his bare ass. Steve isn’t wiry, exactly. He’s smaller than his supersoldier counterpart, but also larger than he was at his sickest. He’s somewhere in between, this Steve, on the smaller side of normal, but strong too, all lean muscle and a hard edge that speaks of survival.

“No one’s going to give you shit for staying in bed a little longer, Rogers,” Bucky says. “Not like they’re gonna see your hair let down and think you’re aiming to get hitched again. We’re adults. It’s just sex.”

Bucky doesn’t know why he says this specifically, but it tumbles out of him thoughtlessly and feels true the moment he has. He frowns, his heart beating erratically in his chest, his brain scrambling to put the clues together.

Steve snorts.

“No,” he says. “They’re just going to think I’m a fucking _idiot_ for fucking my ex. Again.”

Bucky inhales sharply.

Jesus, he thinks. And then: _fucking hell_.

His mouth is more easy-going than his thoughts, it turns out.

“Who’s going to blame you for that?” he hears himself say, with a shrug. “I’m a fantastic lay.”

Steve’s snort takes on a frankly insulting quality. Bucky frowns.

“Whatever,” Steve says, his voice terse. “I’m on hunting this morning. So I’ll...see you later. Or whatever.”

“Not like you have a choice,” Bucky says and Steve freezes for a moment.

It takes him a second longer to unwind than he probably thinks it does, but then he’s bending to pick his clothes off the floor and Bucky’s staring at an eyeful of ass.

“No,” Steve says. “Guess I don’t.”

“Steve,” Bucky says guiltily, feeling as though he’s misstepped. Or maybe he’s said exactly what he meant to say and that’s the whole problem.

Steve doesn’t turn around and Bucky doesn’t urge him to. Instead, he quickly dresses in silence—pulling on his boxers and dirty jeans up over narrow hips and shrugging on a well-worn, oversized grey button up and a beat up olive-colored army jacket over it. He runs a hand through his sex-mussed hair and shoves his feet into tan colored boots that are so beat up the heels must be worn through.

He pauses at the door, one hand on the frame, and Bucky breathes in.

“Don’t...tell Nat, okay?” Steve says.

It feels like a punch to Bucky’s stomach, but he understands. It’s shitty, but he understands.

“Okay,” he says.

“I just don’t want her to get any ideas,” Steve says. “I don’t need another...lecture.”

Bucky’s not sure what Natasha would be lecturing Steve about, and he doesn’t think he or Steve are okay enough in this world for Steve to answer if he asks. So he just nods instead.

“Don’t get eaten,” Bucky says as a well wish.

Steve nods shortly.

“Try my best.”

Bucky’s not sure if he means to get eaten or to not.

He doesn’t have a chance to ask. Steve leaves as quietly as he had come in the night before and Bucky’s left with a mild headache and a sharp, disconsolate ache in the middle of his chest.

  
Bucky’s lost count, at this point, of how many realities he and Thor have fallen through. He’s no longer as perplexed or panicked as he had been when he’d woken up in the middle of World War II, but he still always has a moment of dread anticipating what bad thing might be waiting for them in their new universe. So far the worst that has happened is Steve hating him and trying to kill him, but given their own history, Bucky thinks Steve’s more than earned that.

It’s not a guarantee though, is the thing.

What if he wakes up in a reality where Steve is dead? What if the next one he falls into is one where Thor doesn’t exist? If Bucky has to lose Steve or Thor in any of these new alternate universes, well, he doesn’t have an alternate plan for that. All he has is the vague understanding that if that were to happen, he would just put his face into his hands and start screaming.

Bucky drags himself out of bed and finds whatever boxers and pants he must have shucked off the night before. He pulls them on and finds a white shirt half-hanging off of a wooden chair so old there are cracks running down the base of its legs. He shrugs the shirt on and runs a hand through his hair, rucking through curls that are longer than he usually keeps them with metal fingers that—

Oh.

Bucky withdraws his left hand in surprise, looking down at the worn grooves of a metal arm. There’s a strange disconnect in his brain as he examines it, flexing his familiar-unfamiliar metal fingers, trying to re-train his brain to remember that _this_ is his normal, not all of the universes he had recently been through where it was missing.

It’s strange to have that be a comfort to him, but it makes it no less true. This metal arm isn’t quite as advanced as the one HYDRA had given him and it doesn’t come close to the arm Shuri had outfitted him with, but it’s proficient nonetheless and the weight of it, the movement of it, soothes an itch in Bucky’s brain that he hadn’t realized had been bothering him.

He’s in a strange world with a storyline he has yet to discover, but he has his metal arm again and he has Steve again. And those are two things that feel comfortable to him, even if nothing else does.

Taking a deep breath and giving himself a fortifying smile, Bucky finishes fixing his hair. Then, shoving his hands—both flesh and metal—into the large pockets of his dark cargo pants, he opens the door and steps into the hallway.

  
He’s not entirely sure where he is, but it strikes him as unusual in a way that has him tense, the hairs prickling at the back of his neck. The hallway outside of his room is narrow and dark, with cement walls and ensconced lights that give off a weak flicker, barely enough to light the path. There are no windows and there seem to be few rooms besides. Bucky is cautious as he descends down the length of the hall, eyeing closed doors and skirting around ones that are barely cracked open without looking inside.

Having been in HYDRA employ for most of his other living life, Bucky has a sixth sense about these things. For example, he can tell that he is underground. He can tell that wherever he is, is a secret. He knows, without _knowing_ , that he is in a bunker. He knows all of these things—he just doesn’t know why.

  
The corridor is longer than anticipated and, but for the flickering lights, completely devoid of any movement or human life. It makes Bucky’s skin crawl, a sense of right-not-right that he can’t pinpoint and can’t quite shake. He doesn’t know where Steve’s gone and he doesn’t know who else might be here. Natasha, he thinks, given Steve’s earlier concern.

Bucky turns at the end of the hallway when it connects to a different one and he’s wishing he had a gun on him when he sees light coming through an open doorway at the end of this corridor. He’s careful as he approaches, his footfall silent, his nerves on edge—but then he hears the faint sounds of laughter trickling out with the light.

He lets out a shaky, nervy breath and approaches.

Inside, he hears Natasha say, “I saw him reach into its mouth and try to pull its brain out through its throat.”

Everyone else groans.

Bucky lets his shoulders down.

He’s rolling his eyes as he walks in, knowing without being told, exactly who she’s talking about.

  
As far as kitchens go, this is a particularly depressing one. The walls and floor are made of a grey cement that’s still somehow tarnished with age. There are pipes running across the curved ceiling so corroded that Bucky can nearly taste the rust in the air. There’s a stove and a long, metal sink with rusted tap, a barely functioning steel refrigerator, more pale, flickering lights, and a long, wooden table that everyone is sitting at or leaning against. The entire room feels close and the air smells stale, almost strangely like dirt.

A dark man with white teeth and a smirk on his face looks up at him from next to what looks like a flimsy kitchen rack stacked high with cans.

“Speak of the devil,” the man says.

“I’ve never tried to pull the brains of anything out of anything,” Bucky says, rolling his flesh shoulder. “You must be mistaken.”

“I am never mistaken,” the man grins. “I just like calling you the devil.”

“Don’t tease him, M’Baku,” Natasha drawls from where she’s sitting on the table. She has an uncomfortable grin on her face, nearly wolfish in nature. “Bucky’s had a _very_ long night.”

Bucky doesn’t bother stifling his groan and Clint, his feet up on the table, doesn’t bother hiding his cackle.

“What did I tell you about your feet?” Natasha says and smacks Clint’s ankles.

“Hey!” Clint protests. He grumbles and shoves his feet off anyway.

“Don’t start with me,” Bucky says, failing to suppress a yawn. “Where’s the coffee?”

“You mean the brown sludge Romanoff keeps feeding us?” M’Baku says, lifting a chipped mug in salute.

“I don’t see you complaining when you’re inhaling it,” Natasha says, dryly.

“What are you talking about?” M’Baku blinks at her. “I am complaining about it right now.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and Bucky tries to get their attention again.

“Hello? Sludge? Me?”

“It’s on the counter, stop being a goddamned diva about it,” she says.

Bucky spots the dirty carafe of brown liquid on an equally dirty metal counter. He doesn’t know what’s in it and he doesn’t really care. He just needs something to take the edge off of his interdimensional headache and if his stomach lining has to suffer for it, so be it.

“So, anyway,” Natasha says as he pours the coffee into a dubious looking tin mug.

“Nope,” Bucky says.

“Oh come on!” Clint whines. He has a ball in his hand he keeps throwing up in the air and catching. He has on a loose white tank that’s worn down near the arms and drab army pants. There’s a cut that’s healing across his brow and a bandaid across his nose. Next to him, Bucky is fairly certain Natasha is wearing his oversized, beat up army jacket. Well, okay then.

“I’m not discussing it,” Bucky says. He shouldn’t have even acknowledged it, but he was without coffee and compromised.

“Did you think we wouldn’t notice?” M’Baku asks now, an eyebrow raised.

For a moment Bucky is concerned that he and Steve were too ah, loud. Then he realizes they’re literally all in an underground, cement bunker.

“He slunk out of your room to wash up,” M’Baku says. “Hill saw.”

“So did I,” Clint offers.

“We all saw,” Natasha says, rolling her eyes.

Bucky sighs. He lifts the tin mug to his mouth and tries not to wince as the brown sludge swiftly corrodes his mouth and probably his insides.

“See?” M’Baku grins.

“So are you two getting back together?” Natasha says, ignoring him. “Or are you just boning?”

Bucky is almost positive he’d told Steve that these idiots wouldn’t jump to semi-warranted conclusions. It seems Bucky had been wrong. For the first time in his life, he’s almost feverishly grateful that Steve’s nowhere in sight.

“A man never fucks and tells,” Bucky tries.

“Yeah right,” Natasha scoffs.

Bucky rubs his flesh fingertips against his temple.

“It’s not like that,” he says, with a sigh. “We’re just—it’s nothing. We’re just friends.”

“You are not friends,” M’Baku laughs. Bucky glares at him and the other man shrugs. “You two are always fighting. Shouting. Not in a fun way.”

“That’s called sexual tension,” Clint says, cheerfully.

“Oh honey, no, “ Natasha says and scratches the back of Clint’s head.

“Oh,” Clint says, sadly.

“Look, we’re fine,” Bucky says. He takes another mouthful of coffee and stretches his back. “There’s nothing to talk about. We’re just—” He squints. “—passing the time.”

He doesn’t do air quotes, but he’s tempted.

“A lot of other ways to pass the time,” M’Baku says. “That does not involve—”

He gestures at Bucky as though to indicate he has never seen a bigger mess. Bucky gives him a half-hearted glare.

“You were married, Bucky,” Natasha says.

Bucky’s about to say something nonchalant in response, when he processes what she’s said.

Wait.

His eyes widen, his brain suddenly frizzling.

He must have heard wrong.

He and Steve aren’t—they can’t be—

Surely Bucky would _know_ if they had been—

Natasha makes an empathetic noise.

“Maybe one of you is just passing time,” she says. “But we all know it isn’t you.”

His heart suddenly ticking somewhere near his ears, Bucky curses into his mug. He doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. It makes him unreasonably cranky, to know that there’s a world out there where he and Steve had made it. Where they had found each other and they had realized their feelings in time and they had even _acted_ on them. A world where they had gotten married; ostensibly been in love. A world where they had done everything right and they _still_ hadn’t been able to make it work. Fucking typical.

“I’m done with this topic,” he says curtly and straightens. “Where’s Hill?”

The three others give him sympathetic looks that he promptly ignores. Luckily for him, M’Baku’s interest in his and Steve’s love life is short-lived.

“Hunting,” he says. “She and Wilson and Rogers are on duty today.”

Hunting. Steve had mentioned this too. Bucky has a vague sense of what this means here for them, in the back of his mind, but the whole scheme hasn’t formed completely yet. It’s like knowing the vague outline of the picture, but not yet having the colors to fill it in.

“No flares, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Clint says. “Tony and Pepper haven’t reported any.”

“I’m not worried,” Bucky says immediately. Then, after chewing on what Clint’s said, “Stark and Pepper are...lookout?”

“He begged me for the spot,” Natasha says. She leans forward, as though stretching her back, like a cat. “He thinks she’s finally going to give in.”

“Not a chance,” M’Baku says. “She is much too smart for that.”

“Smart, yes,” Natasha says. She clicks her tongue between her teeth. “Good taste in men, no.”

M’Baku makes a sad face.

“Anyway, no one has been eaten by those beady-eyed fuckers yet,” Clint says. “So I hope that helps.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Bucky says. “Real helpful.”

He finishes his coffee and feels a slight stomach ache.

Is it Natasha’s poison coffee or is it the sudden, overwhelming vision of creatures the size of trees? The colors start to fill in. They’re monstrous terrors, with multiple, beady, dark eyes and wide mouths that open into two rows of razor-sharp teeth. The creatures have four, armored arms with sharp, curved claws to gouge at the end and exoskeletons the color of mud that are nearly impossible to penetrate.

Skrels, they’re called, although a better name might be bloodthirsty, ugly alien motherfuckers. Bucky’s not actually sure they’re aliens, but he knows his luck, which isn’t very good.

“Popped two between the eyes yesterday though,” M’Baku says, pleased. “Fell over dead on their ugly feet.”

“That’s why Danvers was so damn pleased,” Natasha mutters to herself.

“Very happy for all of you,” Bucky says.

And he is. The knowledge falls into place. The Skrels had taken over after the nuclear power plant made half the planet go belly up. No one knows where they came from, but what the explosion hadn’t taken, the creatures had. They were large and ugly and violent and loved to feed on humans. It was a planetary infestation of near-indestructible predators and humans weren’t particularly well-equipped to fight them off.

There used to be more people in this encampment. Now it’s just a handful of them, fighting to survive.

“So where’s Thor?” Bucky asks, hoping.

There’s a confused silence at his question that doesn’t help the pit of dread pooling in his stomach.

“Thor?” Clint asks.

Bucky swallows, his throat dry.

“Thor...Odinson,” he says. “Uh. Big guy? Blond. Beefy. Obsessed with his...brother.”

Natasha, Clint, and M’Baku stare blankly at him. Bucky’s gut churns.

“There’s...no one here by that name, Bucky,” Natasha says. “And there hasn’t ever been.”

Well, fuck.

“Oh,” Bucky says.

“It’s just us,” Clint says. He sounds tired all of a sudden, the carefree slump of his shoulders suddenly less so.

Bucky can see it better then, in the dim, depressing lighting of the kitchen—the lines around the corners of their mouths, the pinched look between their brows, the weight they’re visibly carrying on their shoulders. There might be some teasing, a wan smile or two, but in the end they’re just hardened, haunted survivors of something unspeakable.

“We’re the only ones left,” Clint says and Bucky tries not to panic.

*

The way shifts work is this: there’s a morning shift to clear a mile radius around the bunker from Skrels, an afternoon shift, and a night shift. Usually, if the morning shift is particularly successful, the afternoon and night shifts are less tense and those on watch can keep half an eye on the perimeter and their fingers off the triggers of their rifles. This doesn’t happen too often, not because the morning shift lacks quality, but because Skrels, like all predatory nightmare creatures, love stalking in the middle of the night.

It doesn’t seem fair that they have extra eyes and an impenetrable exoskeleton _and_ night vision, but it also doesn’t seem particularly fair that in a survivor colony of less than a dozen people, Bucky has been put on night shift with the one person who can’t look him straight in the eyes.

Don’t get him wrong, he is always thrilled to be within the vicinity of any Steve, but the two of them have rifles strapped to their backs, knives strapped to their thighs, sawed off shotguns at their waists, and despite how personally hot Bucky finds all of the weaponry, Steve hasn’t said anything more to him than “Ready?” in a good 20 minutes.

The way the shifts work is this: there are three people who go out to scan the perimeter for threats. They stay within a two minute distance of each other, in case something goes belly up. They rely on their instincts and sharpened senses, but mostly from the staticky instructions issued by the two people holding watch on top of the bunker. There’s a metric fuckton that they had lost to the apocalypse, but lucky—or unluckily, depending on the day and how much caffeine he had inhaled—it had spared Tony Stark, who in a former life had been an engineer bordering on mad scientist and in this life, could break into a former cell tower to repair radio signals in the off-chance that anyone else who had also survived might try to make contact. Also, he had broken into the former Stark Industries and rescued a bunch of old, now borderline defunct tech, just before the entire building had collapsed into post-nuclear holocaust ruin.

That was to say, Tony Stark had repaired a few radios that they kept on in the common room in an attempt to make contact with _any other_ survivors out there and also a few sets of walkie talkies. The latter was especially helpful during hunts.

Bucky and Steve each have a walkie talkie strapped to them, as does Clint, who is their third tonight. On the roof of the bunker—called affectionately, or facetiously, the Watch Tower—Natasha and Carol have the night’s watch shift.

“No movement around the eastern perimeter,” Carol’s voice crackles quietly into their walkie talkies.

“Quiet on the west too,” Natasha says after a moment.

Bucky’s footsteps are quiet, his boots muffled by dirt. A dozen paces ahead of him, Steve’s breathing comes out quietly, his footsteps, too, nearly silent.

The night air is cool, the forest around them chilly as the temperature dips from any lingering warmth of the day. It’s one of those nights late in fall, when the leaves are turning—or would have turned before, you know, _nuclear disaster_ —and the trees are rustling under a wind that portends an early winter. There are dry, colorless leaves on the ground and the moon is high in the sky, almost full, and it would be bright except for the amber haze around the edges of it. It’s residual nuclear dust or a burnt atmosphere, or a hundred different scientific explanations that no climate scientists are now around to put a name to.

Fall used to be his favorite season, back when the skies were clear and the temperatures were better modulated. Now, there’s no waiting period between Summer and Winter, no season to ease them from the thick, humid heat into the wet, sharp bitterness of cold. Fall lasts a handful of days and just as the heat of the day recedes, night descends on them with a fury that bites through army jackets and fur-lined leather gloves.

Bucky’s breathing is quiet too and it makes it both peaceful and eerier—he and Steve with their guards up, their fingers on the trigger of shotguns and rifles meant to be aimed through the central point between four eyes. If you’re close enough to see the eyes of a Skrel, you’re as good as dead, but if you can’t see them, you’re nowhere near close enough to get a round off in the one space where the exoskeleton is just soft enough to puncture. It’s tricky, is what he’s saying.

Steve’s shoulders are up near his ears and Bucky’s unclear whether that’s from the sharp awareness of their hunt or because Bucky’s within a dozen yards of him.

It doesn’t seem fair, to have Steve all to himself like this—with moonlight reflecting off the top of his blond hair, his slim shoulders covered by a well-worn leather jacket that Bucky is almost certain once belonged to him—and not be able to say anything.

Bucky’s throat feels dry, a complicated mixture of feelings catching in the barbs of his chest. He wants to say something, but he also doesn’t want to talk at all. He wants to shove Steve back against the gnarled bark of the nearest tree, fist his metal fingers in the silk of his hair, and drag their mouths roughly together.

He thought the hardest part was going to be to say yes to this—to say yes to Steve, to be thought of as worthy enough to have him, or to acknowledge what could be between them. He realizes now that he had been naive at best. The hardest part is to have Steve and know that he’s still lost him. The hardest part is to have had him again and not know if he can continue to have him.

Maybe sleeping with your ex is a bad idea.

Bucky watches the outline of Steve’s shoulders as they slip through the trees and he’s suddenly so frustrated that he can’t stop from making a little noise.

They step over a fallen, gouged tree trunk and Steve pauses.

“I can hear you, you know,” he says.

Bucky slows.

“What?”

“Your...huffing,” Steve says. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.”

Well that’s annoying, actually.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking, Steve,” Bucky murmurs.

Steve lets out a low snort.

“Yeah, right.”

“Excuse me?” Bucky raises an eyebrow at Steve’s back.

“You’re not really as difficult to figure out as you think you are,” Steve says.

“What, and you’re some kind of unreadable brick wall?” Bucky snorts.

“I can at least keep a control on my emotions,” Steve says. “On my temper.”

Bucky lets the statement hang between them, as ridiculous as it is. Then it becomes clear to him that Steve _actually means it_.

“You can’t be serious,” he says.

“You emote any louder and every Skrel in a five mile radius is going to find us,” Steve says and actually sounds _annoyed_. “And I don’t think they’re going to see you sulking and say hey, that guy seems to be having a bad time, let’s just come back another fucking day.”

God, Steve really makes it so fucking _hard_ sometimes.

“Fuck you, Steve,” Bucky says, his voice contracting in anger. “I’ve never heard someone so full of bullshit.”

Steve, who had resumed walking, suddenly stops. Bucky, who hasn’t been following, stares at the suddenly rigid lines of his back.

“Excuse me?”

Bucky tenses because the atmosphere between them tenses. The air is quiet but for the rustling, no birds or any other animals left in the area at this point. Part of that is the nuclear shit. The other part is Skrels. There’s no life left anywhere because of the damned alien insect bastards.

“You heard me,” Bucky says, refusing to back down. “You’re full of shit, Rogers. Always have been.”

Steve turns slowly, his boots pivoting on the ground, his heels digging into the soft mud.

He looks up at Bucky and when he does, it nearly takes Bucky’s breath away. Steve’s eyes, nearly glowing blue in the moonlight, his eyebrows knit together, his mouth a severe, angry slash. He’s pissed. He’s incandescent. Even like this, Bucky’s chest aches.

“You want to say something, then say it, Barnes,” Steve says through grit teeth.

Bucky can’t help the crooked, half grin tilted up on his mouth.

“This wasn’t my idea.”

“What.” Steve’s arms across his chest, his eyebrows raised. Expression carefully controlled. Too careful.

“What happened,” Bucky says. “Fucking. That wasn’t my idea and you know it.”

A tense pause.

“Are you blaming _me_?” Steve says, eyes flashing.

“I’m not _blaming_ anyone,” Bucky says. “I’m telling it like it is. The truth. You wanted it and we always do what you want, so we fucked.”

Steve flushes. Even in the dark, under the cover of trees, Bucky can see it, the splash of furious color across his high cheekbones.

“You—” Steve says, his voice mottled with anger. “We don’t always do—are you saying— _you_ didn’t?”

“I didn’t say that,” Bucky says, crossing his large arms across his chest. “But I’m also not the one acting like the world is fucking ending because I fell into bed with my ex.”

“ _You’re_ the one sulking—”

“And you’re still more obvious,” Bucky says, smugly.

Steve makes a strangled, choked off sound.

“How fucking _dare_ you—”

Bucky moves forward swiftly, closing the yards between them.

“What are y—”

He catches Steve before he can move away.

“You wanted it and so we did it,” Bucky says, his metal fingers circling Steve’s wrist, his flesh hand firmly pressed against Steve’s jaw. Steve’s jaw is working, his eyes lit up with fury and something darker—Bucky knows what that is. He might never have seen it on his own Steve, but it’s unmistakable here—hunger, attraction. Arousal. Steve is pissed at him and that makes Steve want to jump his fucking bones. It’s delicious.

“Fuck you,” Steve hisses. He’s unable to swallow the hitch in his breath. “I didn’t hear you complain when I had my mouth on your dick.”

“When did I say I had a complaint, sweetheart?” Bucky grins.

Steve looks disgusted. He looks like he’s about to punch Bucky...on the mouth. With his own mouth. His darkening eyes flicker down.

“Did you like that?” Steve asks, after a moment. His voice shifts, something lower there. There’s hatred and self loathing and—that other thing.

Steve’s cooled skin heats up under Bucky’s palm. Bucky digs his fingers in harder, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to leave a bruise. Steve swallows. That’s how this Steve likes it, Bucky knows intuitively. Bucky doesn’t mind, himself.

“Like what?” Bucky asks, eyes on Steve’s mouth.

“When I had my mouth on you,” Steve says, voice rough. “When I swallowed you down, just took all of you.”

Bucky is distantly aware of a buzzing sound in the back of his head. His pulse speeds up, his skin suddenly hot.

He swallows. His throat is like sandpaper.

“You did, didn’t you?” Steve says. It’s not a sneer, but it’s close. “My tongue licking all the way up to the tip. The heat of my mouth.”

Bucky has a vision suddenly, of just this—just, Steve on his knees, looking up at him through his eyelashes, Bucky’s metal fingers in his hair—fine blond and specks of grey. Oh, he thinks. Steve with silver in his hair. Steve’s mouth pink, spit dribbling down the corner.

The buzzing sound grows louder.

“Did you like that best?” Steve says and slowly Bucky feels himself moving back. Steve’s strangely large hands on his shoulders, the dynamic between them shifting— _shifted_ as quick as a flash, Bucky’s hand falling away from Steve’s jaw and Steve’s fingers digging into his shoulders instead, into the sensitive skin where Bucky’s metal arm fuses to his body.

Bucky inhales sharply. His breath is coming up short. He can feel himself growing harder.

“Or did you like the way I looked on my knees,” Steve says. “Looking up at you. Hands in my hair. I liked that the best.”

Bucky’s back hits the trunk of a tree. His head’s spinning.

“Steve,” he murmurs.

“I like it when you pull,” Steve grins and before Bucky can understand what’s happening, before he can think twice, Steve has his hand up Bucky’s shirt and his mouth on Bucky’s. He pries it open with his tongue, kissing him hot and angry, so angry, or hungry, the two are twin feelings and Bucky feels it boil in his stomach, in the hard press of his dick against his pants and Steve’s hard length grinding into him and his breath is coming out short and his head is shorting out and then—

“Movement,” a voice crackles urgently over the walkie talkie.

For a moment he doesn’t understand it. He’s still pressing against Steve, chasing his tongue, but the line of Steve’s body has gone rigid, his movements suddenly still.

He hears the crackle again.

Bucky’s eyes fly open. Steve’s stopped cold, his fingers halfway to Bucky’s belt.

“Coming up from the south,” Natasha says, her voice sharp now. “Barton, can you—”

“Nothing here,” Clint says over the connection after a few seconds delay. “I’m too far—northeast? I’m near the edge of the northern perimeter.”

“Rogers, Barnes,” Carol says, urgently. “Status?”

Bucky and Steve look at each other, both frozen for a moment, their skins flushed, their hearts racing. Thoughts blurry. Then they move into action frantically. Trying to shift from lust to terror is a complicated process, but nothing kills a hard on like the thought of becoming Skrel food.

“ _Rogers_ ,” Carol says again, more worried this time. “ _Barnes._ ”

Steve lets go of Bucky quickly and Bucky scrambles for his device. He manages to press the orange button and get it up to his mouth.

“Here,” he says. “Sorry, here. There’s nothing here yet, but—”

He hears Steve hiss.

“Fuck,” Bucky says and his heart rate rockets for a different reason. “Danvers, Romanoff, we’re in central position. And there’s...something here.”

There’s cursing over the line and Bucky feels his heart thud quickly in his neck.

“It’s coming,” Steve says and gets his hand on his rifle. “It’s almost here.”

  
The thing about Skrels is that not only are they huge alien insect motherfuckers with claws and multiple eyes and two rows of small blades for teeth, they _also_ move through the night like it’s their second skin. It doesn’t seem like it should be fucking fair, but it’s the terrifying reality of nature’s—or the universe’s—curent alpha predator.

Bucky can feel his heart skitter rapidly in his throat, his fingers growing numb, either from the cold or nerves.

“Steady,” Steve whispers, although he couldn’t possibly know that Bucky’s paralyzed with knowledge that hasn’t fully materialized yet.

He _knows_ what a Skrel is and he even knows what they can do, but he hasn’t actually seen one yet— _he_ hasn’t fought one yet. Not in this version of his body. He supposes that maybe the children and dogs of Thanos might have been worse on a grander scale, but he’d also had gods and aliens and Wakandan tech fighting beside him against the Titan and his creations. Here, Bucky and Steve have standard issue weapons that Bucky isn’t clear work all that well.

“To the left,” Steve murmurs. He and Bucky are back-to-back, scanning the trees for rustling. The only saving grace they’re given is that Skrels aren’t light-footed, which is trivial, as far as blessings go, but Bucky will take any blessing he can get, especially in the middle of the night.

“How many?” Bucky mutters into the walkie talkie.

There’s the quiet crackle over the line and then Natasha’s voice, quiet as a breath.

“Two,” she says.

Bucky curses under his breath as Steve inhales. Two alien insect gods the size of fucking trees and just the two of them, humans hardened by loss and the harsh reality of survival, but humans nonetheless.

Bucky’s never thought he would miss his knockoff superserum body, but as he lifts the rifle up to his shoulder and his flesh arm lightly aches, he has the passing thought that the body he had thought so ugly and borderline repulsive had served him well.

The rustling grows louder. There’s one to the south, catty-corner to Steve, and another, more immediate rustling just ahead of Bucky.

“I got your back,” Steve says, behind him.

Bucky nods as an ugly, brown clawed foot steps out from behind the brush.

“We’ve done this a hundred times,” Bucky says and cocks his rifle.

“What’s once more?” Steve replies.

Bucky has time to inhale once before the air rends open with inhuman screeching and there are claws slashing at him.

  
Skrels aren’t quiet creatures, which is just as well because Bucky and Steve shout as the monsters explode from behind the trees.

Bucky doesn’t get the fucking chance to set off a round before the creature’s long claws lunge at him, trying to gouge his stomach. He yells and dodges out of the way and another arm comes down, slicing through the air from the other direction, its bladed claws nicking Bucky’s metal arm as he pants out a curse and raises the rifle to shoot at the closest joint.

The bullet ricochets off of the creature’s exoskeleton, only causing it to grow angrier, and its claws snap through the air in response, its razor-sharp teeth clacking together as it opens its mouth and screams louder. A Skrel’s scream is unlike anything Bucky has ever heard before, both high-pitched and haunting, so painful to hear that it’s as though its sound is another weapon, a scream meant to rattle into eardrums and make bones shatter.

Bucky pants as he’s driven back, his heart lodged in his throat, his teeth aching from the sound. He dodges a claw that swipes at him again and throws himself behind a tree just as the blade is embedded into the bark.

The Skrel shrieks and Bucky leans out from behind, aiming his rifle at its head, trying to get the spot between the eyes. He gets off a round that bounces off the armor at its chest and, cursing, shoots again, only to miss altogether. The Skrel, nine feet tall, with gangly limbs sharpened like knives, shakes its claws loose and then lunges at the tree Bucky’s hidden behind. He has to bodily throw himself into the brush as the tree and the monster topple over.

Bucky shoves himself up to his knees and lifts his rifle to shoot when one of the monster’s long limbs whip around, driving a claw into Bucky’s metal wrist. Bucky shouts, the reverberations from the hit traveling up his arm, making his jaw clench and his brain shake and the rifle go skittering out of his hands.

He doesn’t have time to think about the weapon—he twists himself out of the way just as the claw slams into the ground where he had been, like a scorpion’s tail aiming to kill.

“Motherfucker!” Bucky screams and fumbles for his sawed off shotgun. He manages to get a hand on it as the Skrel straightens itself, on all fours, seething at Bucky, staring at him with its four eyes, like a predator that’s cornered its prey.

Bucky can’t feel his chest anymore, his heart is bulleting so fast. His body is all instinct, knit together by pulsing adrenaline.

The Skrel screeches.

He raises the shotgun and the Skrel darts forward, the fast motherfucking motherfucker, and Bucky shouts as he pulls the trigger.

The shot ricochets off the exoskeleton again, but this time hits the ugly motherfucker’s jaw, making it pause with another, inhuman scream. That might not do damage, but the reverberations of the shot must hurt anyway, because Bucky’s given the chance to scramble away, his boots crunching on dried leaves and broken branches as he shoves his body forward, tries to put distance between him and the creature.

The Skrel’s surprise lasts only long enough to give Bucky a running start and then it’s slithering after him again, now chasing on all fours, its razor-sharp tail flicking behind it, its teeth bared, its four eyes clicking open and shut.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, ” Bucky curses to himself as he throws himself behind another tree just as the tail whips through the trunk.

Nearby, he hears more shots and Steve’s own shouts, but Bucky has his own alien insect problem to deal with. Still, he doesn’t want to get separated and if Steve becomes Skrel food, he will never fucking forgive himself.

Cursing some more and hoping that Clint is on his fucking way, Bucky pivots on his feet just as the Skrel raises itself back up.

There’s a split second’s chance here.

There’s no real time to think, just the one second vulnerability between the Skrel kneeling on all fours and raising itself to its full height. It’s not distraction, per se. It’s more the time between two positions, when it hasn’t settled enough to gather its full strength yet.

Heart beating in his ears, forehead and back damp with sweat, adrenaline lighting up every single fucking cell in his body, Bucky raises the shotgun again.

“Eat _shit_!” he spits and takes the shot between its eyes.

The brain splatters more aggressively than Bucky would have expected. He doesn’t have time to take a sigh of relief. He barely has time to wipe the grime off his forehead.

There’s a pained shout somewhere behind him and Bucky’s blood runs cold.

“Steve,” he says and bolts through the woods toward him.

  
Steve’s on his knees, claws driven into his right arm. He’s panting, his blue eyes wide, electric with pain. There’s blood soaking his side, blood trickling down his forehead.

It’s the most terrifying sight Bucky has ever fucking seen.

Steve still has a knife in his hand and he’s going to go for it, the absolute fucking asshole.

“Steve!” Bucky shouts, but the Skrel is shrieking, ignoring everything to gear up to drive its razor-blade tail through Steve’s heart.

“ _Steve_!” Bucky screams again, even louder, just loud enough to cut through the noise.

The Skrel pauses, confused.

It turns to look at Bucky, all four eyes blinking, its two rows of blade teeth clicking.

Bucky backs up, trying to attract its attention away from Steve.

“ _Bite me, motherfucker_ ,” he shouts, until his feet tangle with an overturned root. Bucky inhales sharply in pain as his ankle twists and he loses his balance, going down and landing hard on his ass.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, eyes widening.

The motherfucking alien insect _leers_ and with a rending screech, shoots one of its claws out at Bucky. Bucky, cursing, fumbles with his shotgun too fucking late.

“ _Bucky, no!_ ” Steve shouts, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

Bucky raises his metal arm to protect him from the strike.

There’s a loud, deafening blast and a beat of pure pause and then the Skrel shrieks so loudly Bucky thinks his heart is going to burst from the pressure of it.

He lowers his arm and covers his ears, his heart pounding painfully, his blood feeling like it’s going to evaporate under his skin.

The Skrel’s head bursts open and it falls to its side with a sickening, final crunch.

Steve’s eyes are wide with shock as he looks behind Bucky.

“Fuck,” Clint says behind him, lowering his shotgun. “That was close.”

  
Bucky’s heart is about to beat out of his fucking chest and he’s bruised up and his entire body feels like someone’s taken a fucking sledgehammer to it, but otherwise he’s okay. He doesn’t think he’s twisted his ankle, but there’s definitely enough tenderness that as he stands, he tilts sideways into Clint, who catches him quickly.

“Careful,” the other man says.

“Fuck,” Bucky rasps out.

“You twist it?” Clint asks and Bucky shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t care. With the help of Clint, he hops over to Steve and collapses onto his knees in front of him.

“Steve,” he murmurs as he reaches for him.

Steve’s hand is pressed to his side and his right arm is bloodied from the Skrel claw, but he seems to be mostly okay. He’s pale and there’s blood everywhere and his breathing is shallower than Bucky would like it to be, but Bucky starts fussing over him—pressing his hand to his sides and to his shoulder and his face—and this pisses Steve off so much, he tries to shove Bucky off, which is as good an indicator as any that Steve’s not going to die tonight.

“Stop, Buck,” Steve says. “ _Stop!_ ”

Bucky growls at him, but pulls his hands back. His palms are damp with Steve’s blood now, to say nothing of the dirt and grime he’s covered with. He can feel soft Skrel brain sliding down his temple and Skrel residue mixed with blood and dirt making his shirt stick to his skin. It’s genuinely disgusting. He’s filthy. He’s exhausted and filthy.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, voice still sharp with concern. He’s too tired to fight with Steve, but he does need to know he’s okay. A verbal confirmation.

Steve’s eyes are shiny from pain, but he lets out a low breath and nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “More or less. You?”

“Ankle’s a little fucked up,” Bucky says. “But nothing I won’t survive.”

Steve nods.

“Your arm?”

Bucky looks at his left arm and sees some gouge marks, but the plates still seem to shift and he can move it around easily enough, even though the shoulder where the arm is attached is hurting like a mother.

“We got any painkillers back in the compound?” he asks, gritting his teeth against the shooting pain.

“Ha,” Steve says, sounding similarly worn out. “Good one.”

“Great,” Bucky says. He lets out a sigh and lets his hands drop to either side of him, in the dirt.

Somewhere, distantly, they hear Carol’s voice come over a walkie talkie. Both he and Steve must have lost theirs in the fight. He can hear Clint answer, though. The other man’s wandered back through the wrecked clearing to check on Bucky’s Skrel.

“Haven’t been ambushed in a while,” Steve says. His eyes droop with exhaustion.

“Are they getting smarter?” Bucky asks. He hopes not. Jesus.

“If they are, we are extremely, beyond the pale fucked,” Steve says. He lets out a little pained wheeze and Bucky straightens.

“Hey, let’s get you back,” he says.

“I’m fine, Buck,” Steve says, the filthy liar.

“Your arm is hanging on by a single fucking ligament, Steve,” Bucky says.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Steve says through grit teeth, his eyes shining in defiance.

“You have blood _everywhere_ —”

“Are your ears broken?”

“I can _see_ you wincing in pain, Rogers—”

“Leave me _alone_ —”

“You drive me fucking _crazy_!” Bucky explodes, his frustration and worry boiling over. “You’re bleeding, you’re clearly hurt, you almost got impaled by an alien motherfucker, can you for the love of _God_ for once in your miserable fucking life, just _let me take care of you. _”__

He doesn’t realize how loud and angry his voice has gotten until he stops and hears it resounding loudly between the trees. It’s only then that he realizes he’s also shaking. Steve’s eyes widen, his mouth open, slack-jawed.

Bucky doesn’t apologize, but he has about two seconds to feel bad for yelling, when Steve, hand still pressed to his bleeding side, gets to his knees and starts to crawl over to him.

“What—” Bucky says in confusion.

“Shut up,” Steve says.

“What the fu—” Bucky starts, but he doesn’t get a chance to finish before Steve’s in front of him, on his knees. His hands are shaking, balled into Bucky’s shirt collar.

“Kiss me,” Steve says.

“What?”

“Just,” Steve says and makes a little noise. It’s somewhere between frustration and hurt and something almost like—oh.

Fear.

Steve’s afraid.

That’s when Bucky realizes he’s shaking too, all over.

“Okay,” Bucky says. Then, softer, “Okay.”

Steve shakes his head and Bucky soothes him. “C’mere.”

He smooths his flesh hand over Steve’s filthy hair and runs it down Steve’s shaking back. He pulls Steve closer and, ignoring the residual terror in his eyes, kisses him calmer.

  
Steve holds onto him with his uninjured arm, his face pressed into Bucky’s filthy neck. Bucky says nothing, holding Steve in between his arms, careful not to upset his injury, pressing firm kisses into the side of his head and to his ear, trying to quell his shaking.

Steve takes large, unsteady breaths and Bucky runs his flesh hand up and down his back, rubbing soothing circles into his back, until slowly, inch by inch, Steve’s tension starts to let up.

It takes longer than he will ever admit, but eventually, Steve is steady enough to pull back and his eyes have lost some of their bright, glossy fear.

“Thanks,” he says quietly.

Bucky nods.

They say nothing for another minute, the sounds of the now-quiet woods filtering in between them, just the wind rustling in between trees and their low, quiet breathing.

Bucky opens his mouth to say something, although he’s not sure what. Maybe it will be something good. Maybe he’ll just say something to fuck the two of them up again.

He doesn’t get a chance to do either.

“Hey, guys,” Clint interrupts them from wherever he is, voice loud and surprised.

Frowning, Steve’s eyes flicker over Bucky’s shoulder toward the direction Clint had walked.

“I—holy shit,” Clint says. He sounds flabbergasted—almost in awe. “You guys need to see—”

“Clint?” Bucky calls back.

“Holy shit,” Clint’s voice comes again and this time Steve starts to look worried.

“Hold on,” he says. “We’re coming.”

“No, it’s—” Clint says and suddenly he crashes through the brush and appears to the left of Bucky. He looks—Clint’s eyes are bright, his cheeks flushed. His entire face is slack with shock. Or surprise.

“What is it?” Bucky asks with a frown.

“It’s someone,” Clint says.

For a moment Bucky thinks he’s misheard him.

“What?” Steve says.

“Someone,” Clint says and now his voice ticks up in excitement. “Another person. Holy shit, I found another survivor.”

  
They manage to hobble together through the clearing, past the carnage of two dead Skrels and countless upturned trees and gnarled roots.

They skirt a tree that’s been completely snapped in half and that’s when they see him—the man lying bloodied and unconscious in the brush, barely illuminated by the pale, hazy moonlight.

“Oh my god,” Steve breathes out.

They stumble toward him quickly, the first new person they’ve all seen in well over two years.

It’s only as Steve and Bucky lower themselves to their knees to make sure he’s alive that Bucky recognizes the dark hair and pale skin.

An electric shock jolts through his spine.

“Holy fuck,” Bucky breathes out. “Loki?”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXES TO LOVERS, BABY!!!!!!!!!! hope you're all as into it as I am. :)))


	17. Chapter Seventeen. [ sixth oddity: post-apocalypse ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s funny to Thor, in a way. That he could fall through half a dozen different realities and still end up here, in the same place he was before: with a group of people who have lost everything, just hoping to survive and looking at him to lead the way.
> 
> “So,” Nebula says, her dark eyes staring him down. “What do we do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wish you all a HAPPY FRIDAY again before realizing it's Monday. Truly, time is now a meaningless circle.
> 
> Here's a little more of lovers at the end of the world. ♥
> 
>  **cw:** depictions of bodily harm/dressing wounds

The first thing that wakes him up is the sound of water. It’s not a loud thing, no swells or rushes as a river chokes and spills over with rainfall. It’s a quieter sound than that, a gurgle or a soft sigh, water sliding up against rocks and then sliding past them.

He’s been near water only a few times in his very long life. The last time was in a village close to the sea, inside a small cottage tucked in between other, small cottages, with only him in his own. For a moment it sounds too familiar, the loneliness feels too similar. His chest fills with the heavy weight of anxiety, a spike of panic in his throat as he’s taken back and thinks: _I’ve returned, I’m back where it all began_ and _every part of it just was a dream_.

The second thing that wakes him up isn’t a sound, it’s a feeling. There’s suddenly movement near the foot of his bed—no, of the shitty mattress laid on the ground—and he freezes as he feels hands on his knees and then on his hips and then a forehead that bumps into his chin and a light string of curses.

“What—” Thor starts, surprised and then the head emerges from under the blanket, a dark crown and green eyes that blink sleepily up at him in the dark.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Loki mutters.

Surprise floods Thor, paralyzing him for a moment. Or maybe that’s the relief.

“So you decided to crawl into bed with me?” he says.

Loki’s eyes are already halfway closed again, his mouth soft with sleep.

“Your bed’s more comfortable,” he says.

“There’s barely enough room for me here,” Thor grumbles. He sounds annoyed, but he isn’t, at all. He’s the opposite of that, nearly dizzy with relief. Loki being here, Loki being _alive_ —it’s more than the companionship. It means that Thor isn’t back there, hasn’t been shoved back to New Asgard without warning, alone once again. He doesn’t know _where_ he is, but he knows it isn’t there.

Loki gives a little sigh and shifts, readjusting himself to fit neatly against Thor, an arm slung loosely across Thor’s waist.

“You complain too much,” Loki says, sleepily.

“I thought you couldn’t sleep,” Thor says. Still, he shifts closer, fitting Loki against him so that they’re both contained on the mattress.

“Yeah,” Loki mutters, his voice already fading. “Wide awake.”

Thor rolls his eyes, but can’t help the small warmth of fondness that glows in the center of his chest. Loki’s breathing evens out and even though they’re cramped together and Thor is more disposed to overheating than he isn’t, he tucks his head against the top of Loki’s head.

He doesn’t know where he is or when he is, but having Loki here is enough for him, for now.

He falls asleep like that, wrapped around Loki like a sleeping bag, with a hazy moon filtering in through thin tent walls and the sound of water in his ears.

  
The next time he wakes up, it’s bright. Thor groans and stretches his body lengthwise, trying to roll out the cramps in his muscles, the place in his lower back that aches with soreness. There’s a lot of discomfort his Midgardian body will take, but sleeping while tensed and crowded on a thin mattress on cold, hard ground doesn’t appear to be one of them.

He opens his eyes and flops his arm out to the side, trying to find the second body he semi-willingly shared his space with last night. But there’s no one there.

“Loki?” Thor asks.

There’s no answer.

Awfully worried all of a sudden, Thor pushes himself up on the mattress and blearily looks around his tent. It’s bigger than the one he remembers from the first reality—the Midgardian war—but not too large. There’s the bed and a rectangular wooden slab that looks like a desk, a chair with metal legs, and a wooden trunk next to the opposite side of the bed, where Loki should be, but decidedly is not.

Loki is decidedly nowhere inside.

“Loki?” Thor calls again, louder and slightly more anxious this time.

When there’s no answer, Thor rolls to the edge of the mattress and is about to pull on a dirty pair of jeans, when the tent flap opens.

“Relax,” Loki says, coming inside. “If you’re any louder, they’ll be able to hear you on the other side of the camp.”

Thor takes a relieved breath, trying to calm his uneasy, racing heart.

“Where did you go?” he says. “I woke up and you weren’t here.”

“I had to piss,” Loki says, unceremoniously. “And then I made the mistake of passing Fandral on the way back. And then he would _not_ shut up. And then I could no longer sleep.”

Thor, barely following, tries not to let his confusion appear on his face.

“Fandral?”

Loki rolls his eyes. “He’s on watch with Valkyrie, I believe.”

 _Fandral is alive_ , Thor thinks, somewhat hazily.

“I thought they weren’t allowed on watch together anymore,” is what he mutters out loud. He rubs his palms into his eyes and tries to shake off the yawn that threatens to overtake him.

“Because of the last time?” Loki says and Thor can hear the smile in his voice. “I still think she should have left him to the Skrel.”

“Loki!” Thor says, looking up at him and Loki has on that grin—the one that tilts up at the corners, sharp and full of unfiltered mischief.

“Well the camp would be a lot quieter,” Loki says. “You have to admit.”

“He’s my best friend,” Thor says and Loki makes a distant humming noise. He crosses his arms at his chest and leans against the wooden table slab.

“I know,” Loki says. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

Thor rolls the soreness out of his shoulders and then does stand up to pull on his jeans. He’s in boxers and a threadbare t-shirt that’s so thin he might as well only be wearing his skin. Loki watches him with the bland disinterest of someone who has seen the same thing a hundred times before.

“I need to shower,” Thor says. He doesn’t think interdimensional traveling has a particular stench of its own, so the grime and sweat must be unique to this body. He feels a thin layer on his skin, both filmy and grainy at once. It’s dirty and uncomfortable and he feels self conscious in a way that Loki clearly doesn’t notice.

“You can take a swim later,” Loki says. He pushes himself up from the table. “Or if you keep General Okoye waiting, she’ll push you in herself. It accomplishes the same thing, but in a far more entertaining way.”

Thor gives him a look.

“For me,” Loki says with a grin.

Thor rolls his eyes and grabs the army jacket that’s slumped over the chair and pulls it over his large shoulders.

“Why are you always trying to get people to push me into the lake?” he asks.

“Because, dear stepbrother, it pleases me,” Loki says with a smile. He reaches up on his tiptoe and presses a kiss to Thor’s scratchy jaw. “And I _love_ to be pleased.”

Thor’s stomach clenches and cheeks burn and Loki cackles as he pulls away.

He opens the tent flap and steps out and Thor, bemused, wonders how there can be so many Lokis in the universe and each of them as consistently and reliably annoying as his own.

  
The sun isn’t quite in the middle of the sky yet, but it’s high enough to indicate the morning is or has rapidly passed while he slept. It’s a bright day, although the sky retains that strange, hazy quality that Thor had noticed of the moonlight, as though it was being shrouded by a cloud of dust filtering out much of the light.

Thor raises a hand to shield his eyes nonetheless and sees the breadth of the encampment—a dozen or so tents of similar sizes constructed next to one other beside the edge of a cliff that slopes down and abuts a lake of some sort. That’s where the sound of water is coming from.

He’s distracted for a moment by the wet breeze ruffling off the lake, cool air sliding against skin that’s starting to itch from grime. He really needs to bathe.

Then he hears Loki’s voice coming from the opposite direction and he turns, spying a circular clearing of some sort between some of the tents. In the middle is a large fire pit and around it, logs that have been smoothed on top and boulders large enough to sit on.

It’s here that he sees familiar faces, sitting around the fire and talking. Loki chooses a boulder and hauls himself on top, where he sits cross-legged and begins fiddling with some square device on his lap.

Next to him, Thor is relieved to see Sif sitting on a log and sharpening knives. On a log across from her, Fandral is slicing open some fruit and eating pieces off the blade of his dagger.

There’s someone kneeling by the fire pit Thor doesn’t recognize. She has skin so pale it’s almost blue and a smooth, completely bald head. She has a metal arm that ends in a claw of some sort and when she shifts, Thor can see some sort of a metal eyepatch secured to her left eye.

It’s only when he hears her say something to Valkyrie—who is leaning, arms crossed at her chest, against a larger boulder—that he feels the surprise of recognition.

“Nebula?” he says out loud.

The Titan’s daughter—who is clearly very much not a blue-skinned Luphomoid in this reality—looks up at him, one eyebrow raised.

“What?”

“I—” Thor says and then quickly covers for himself. “—didn’t know you were back.”

Nebula gives him a sharp, narrow look, and then shrugs.

“Last night,” she says in her familiar gravelly voice.

“You were gone a while,” Thor says.

“Took us longer than expected,” she says and shrugs again. “Ran into a few exo-freaks along the way. Found an abandoned encampment—”

Thor doesn’t fully understand everything that’s happening, but his heart does speed up at that, hoping—

“Nothing,” she says. “We took what we could and razed it. No sign of life there or anywhere around it for miles.”

Thor feels the thud of disappointment. The specifics of this reality are still filtering into his brain, but he’s starting to get a sense of the bigger picture from context clues. There’s no real reason why they would all be living in a tent city by water, with the sky a muddy sepia-tone, and a sense of cautious, haggard despair hanging in the air among them if it wasn’t something terrible—like the end of the world.

“Ah,” he says.

“Rhodey’s told T’Challa most of it,” Nebula says. “He was up a lot earlier than you were.”

“Ah,” Thor says again, this time clearing his throat in somewhat embarrassment. On his boulder, Loki’s still tinkering with something, but now he’s grinning. “I didn’t plan on sleeping so late. My apologies.”

“Whatever,” she says and lets out a pleased sound as the logs catch fire. “There.”

“Finally,” Valkyrie says, leaning off her boulder. “I don’t know why it hates the rest of us.”

“Have you been without fire this entire time?” Nebula asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Valkyrie says, rolling a shoulder. “We’re not completely useless. Just mostly. I blame Fandral.”

“Hey!” Fandral protests from his log, but then shrugs and eats another slice of the pale fruit. “I bring my qualities.”

“Like what?” Sif says suddenly, looking up from her weapons. “What qualities? Name one.”

“Well—” Fandral starts, but Thor has to cut him off.

He strides forward and finds an empty log seat to ease himself down onto. He groans slightly, every muscle in his body aching. He doesn’t think it was from fucking. Or at least, he has no memory that he has been fucking anyone here, despite his bedding situation from the night before.

Instead, when he tries to think about it, he sees flashes of himself and a creature of some kind—a huge, ugly brown thing with clicking eyes and two rows of teeth in a hideous mouth. A sharp ache shoots through his lower back at the memory.

“We need to figure out what to do,” he says, swallowing the pain and running a hand through his short, dirty hair. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“I like it here,” Fandral says, leaning back on his log. “There’s fresh water. Those fuckers hate water, we can’t get much safer than staying put.”

Valkyrie lets out a breath as though she’s both used to and put out by dealing with Fandral’s unique level of idiocy, which—

“That’s not the problem,” Loki says from his boulder. “Have you paid attention to a single thing anyone else has ever said?”

“I dunno,” Fandral says with a light shrug. “Probably.”

Valkyrie makes an annoyed noise as Nebula rolls her eyes and pulls back from the fire. She shuffles backward and rummages through a dirty, plastic trash bag that’s sitting by the bottom of Valkyrie’s boulder.

“There’s nothing around here,” Valkyrie says. She watches as the other woman begins to pull things out of the bag. For a moment Thor doesn’t understand what the bright red, marbled slabs are, before realizing it’s meat of some kind.

Nebula has a pile of sharpened sticks next to her and wordlessly, she begins skewering the meat on the sticks.

“We found that family of deer,” Fandral says. “Earlier this week.”

“That’s the first game we’ve seen in a month,” Valkyrie says. She’s still watching Nebula, arms crossed. Nebula hands two skewers to Valkyrie and after a moment, Valkyrie takes them. “The explosion took out most of the wildlife in this area. We don’t even see birds anymore.”

“There’s no vegetation,” Loki chimes in. “No grain. Nothing to make bread with. Everything we’ve scavenged from the city is nearly gone and everything left behind is either molding or rotting from radioactivity.”

“Fish?” Fandral says hopefully, glancing at the lake.

“No fish,” Thor says. “There hasn’t been fish in months.”

“We have to move,” Loki says. He frowns at the contraption in his lap and Thor straightens a bit to try and see what it is. “The only thing not dead in this area is us.”

“Surely that counts for something,” Fandral says.

“Yes,” Loki says, looking up at him and smiling. “If you are a proponent of cannibalism.”

Fandral makes a face and then looks down guiltily at the fruit in his hand.

“Loki’s right,” Nebula says. She hands two skewers to Sif, who puts her knives and whetting stone down to accept them. “The reason it took us so long is because there was nothing out there. We walked for three days before we crossed the first abandoned outpost. There were no birds, no animals, barely anything for us to scrounge from the forest and eat. It was...eerie.”

Thor lets out a rough breath and runs his hand through his hair again. There was more to the end of the world than ugly brown creatures with a violent craving for human flesh. The air was polluted and the water tainted enough to no longer hold life. The animals had left the area or died out completely. It was like living in an open wasteland, a cemetery of life.

“If we stay here we will starve,” Loki says. He fiddles with a knob of some kind and then suddenly pulls out a long silver rod that was tucked into the device. He breathes out carefully and then lifts it to his ear, shaking it slightly and turning more knobs.

“Are you still on that?” Valkyrie says. “It’s useless, Loki.”

Loki scowls at her and continues trying to—catch a signal, Thor realizes. It’s a radio.

“There’s no one out there,” Valkyrie says. She squats closer to the fire and begins to roast her skewered meat. “If there was other life left, we would have seen them by now. But nothing. No one near us, no one around us. Anyone who was left is either long gone or long dead.”

“So the entire world is comprised of the dozen of us in this camp?” Loki says, sounding annoyed. “That is your theory?”

“I am not repopulating the world,” Sif says. She barely waits for the meat to brown before taking a bite of it.

Nebula hands Thor two skewers and he stares at them, feeling strangely guilty for eating what food there is left to them.

“Who is going to repopulate the world with _you_?” Loki asks.

“I won’t fuck you, no matter how sweetly you ask,” Sif says, grinning at him, and Loki rolls his eyes and goes back to his radio.

“No one fuck anyone else,” Thor says, tiredly. He pauses. “Well, unless you’d like to.”

Valkyrie grins at Sif for some reason that Thor cannot explain.

“We need a decision, Thor,” Nebula is the one to say.

Thor feels each pair of eyes refocus on him, all except for one, which belongs to the person still busy trying to fix a broken radio.

“A decision,” he says, keeping the nerves out of his voice.

“Do we stay or do we go?” Nebula says. “Where do we go if we leave? We’ll die if we stay here, but we might die if we go.”

Thor looks at the fire uncertainly. It flickers red and yellow, flames curling into the air. There’s the smell of crackling logs and browning meat and Thor swallows a weary sigh.

“It’s a risk either way,” Nebula says, her voice even. “But you need to make a decision. We can’t keep holding like this.”

It’s funny to Thor, in a way. That he could fall through half a dozen different realities and still end up here, in the same place he was before: with a group of people who have lost everything, just hoping to survive and looking at him to lead the way.

“So,” Nebula says, her dark eyes staring him down. “What do we do?”

It’s times like this that he misses the guiding hand of Steve Rogers, or the unparalleled certainty of his father. Even Nick Fury had had his moments, shouldering the burden of decision when no one else would. Thor had once believed himself capable of this role, of this same type of unshakeable leadership—but he hasn’t felt that same belief in many years now.

He had tried. He had taken a decision and it had ultimately cost him everything. He had said _burn Asgard_ and lost everything along the way. Perhaps he no longer believes that it’s all his fault, but that doesn’t make Asgard any less destroyed.

Maybe this was the Fates’ way of punishing him. Maybe everyone would always look to him for guidance and he would always make the wrong decision. Perhaps that was the price he had to pay for destroying what he had loved the most.

Thor shakes his head, suddenly no longer hungry. He gets up and hands the skewers to Fandral, who takes them from him with surprise.

“I need to bathe,” he says, which is true.

It’s a moment’s reprieve, a chance to think.

It’s cowardice, is what it is.

Thor turns on his heels and makes his way out of the circle.

No one says anything as he leaves.

After a minute, he hears what sounds like the crackle of static from Loki’s radio.

  
He needs time to think. That they are seemingly running out of exactly this thing isn’t lost on him, but doesn’t make it any easier to take on the fate of possibly the last remaining members of humanity. Hadn’t he done this once before? And look where that had gotten his people.

Thor climbs down the slope, the rocky staircase that leads them from the top of the cliff to the crushed up gravel by the water’s edge. This isn’t a lake like those in Asgard, with soft, green shores and clear, blue water lapping at the edge. Still, it’s enormous, reaching almost as far as Thor can see, with a rocky shoreline and grey water that reflects the grey, gloomy sky.

There’s almost certainly an untold number of toxins buried here, enough ashfall and residue from the nuclear explosion that any wildlife that had once lived in the lake has since been eradicated. He thinks about this as he shucks his filthy shirt off and strips out of his dirty jeans and underwear and tests the water with a foot before walking straight into it.

Whatever was in here hadn’t made mutants of them yet, which wasn’t to say they wouldn’t one day wake up with an extra set of limbs or a particularly terrible disease ravaging their insides, but for now it was water that they could bathe in and, with some ramshackle filtration, drink.

He wades out until the water buffets him just above his waist, the temperature so cold that he feels gooseflesh erupt along his arms. Thor ignores the discomfort and quietly works the dirt out of his skin, rubbing the grime away with grey water.

It washes off him easily enough and after a few minutes of sloshing himself with the icy water and dunking his head below to wash his hair, he’s so cold that he barely feels the temperature at all.

Thor emerges from under the surface with water sluicing down his chest, his wet hair stuck to his temples and rivulets streaming down the sides of his face.

“Do you know,” Loki says and Thor inhales sharply in surprise, “how many views I could have gotten with a video of that if phones still existed?”

“Excuse me?” Thor gasps and rubs water from his eyes.

“It’s positively pornographic,” Loki says. He’s sitting on the bottom step of the stone staircase, his knees pulled up and his arms looped around them. “Do you always bathe like that?”

“Do you always watch me bathe?” Thor asks. He’s shivering again, the cold making its way down his spine and settling somewhere near his lungs.

“Well, not always,” his stepbrother says, with an exaggerated wink.

Thor raises an eyebrow and runs a hand through his wet hair, trying to comb and fix it at the same time.

“Entertainment is dreadfully lacking in the apocalypse,” Loki says, as though in explanation. “And you’re always good for an afternoon.”

“You’re welcome?” Thor says, uncertainly.

Loki waves a hand dismissively and Thor, rarely self-conscious, suddenly feels an acute sense of self-consciousness. He has bathed in front of his brother before—a hundred times before, even—but it somehow feels different here, for no reason he could identify. He’s aware of his clothes on the gravelly shore, of the sum total of nothing he’s wearing, his lower half barely covered by the lake.

“We need to talk,” Loki says.

He’s serious, his dark brows drawn together and his usually bright green eyes dimmed in thought. He’s not the thin, lithe version of his brother Thor is used to, although that’s not to say he’s nearly as big as Thor is here. This Loki is built for survival, just as the rest of them are. He’s all muscle, thicker in the chest than Thor’s own Loki, with bigger arms, but with the same long, strong legs.

Thor’s throat feels a little dry looking at him, sitting there in a long-sleeved, thin black shirt, tucked into olive colored pants, and a light brown shoulder holster roped around each strong arm. His dark hair is short—the shortest Thor has ever seen on him—with dark strands curling near his ears.

“What about?” he says, trying to shake his sudden nerves—the tightness in his stomach.

Loki says nothing for a moment, his long fingers drumming against his knees. He’s looking ahead at the sky, somewhere to the left of Thor.

“We can’t stay here,” Loki says.

Now Thor’s stomach tightens for a different reason. He sighs and splashes a hand in the water.

“I know,” he says.

“I know you do,” Loki says and suddenly turns his gaze on him. There’s something there—a caution that Thor is familiar with, although he has not seen it for many centuries.

There is something Loki does not want to tell him.

“What is it?” Thor says, with a frown.

“It doesn’t make sense to stay,” Loki says after a moment. “But...it also doesn’t make sense to go.”

Thor’s frown deepens.

“Is there some third option I’m missing?” he says.

Loki licks his lips and looks almost nervous.

“I figured out what was wrong with the radio.”

It’s so different from what Thor imagined he might say that he blinks in surprise, taken aback.

“What?”

“I fixed it,” Loki says. He rolls a shoulder and sighs. “Well, it was never truly broken. The problem was the frequency. It wasn’t catching the right one. But then.”

Thor doesn’t really understand what Loki’s saying.

“Speak plainly, Loki,” he says.

“There was someone there,” Loki says, his voice suddenly high with excitement, his expression almost tremulous. “It was—only for a second. There and gone. But he was there, Thor. _There was someone there._ ”

“A survivor?” Thor says, eyes widening. He sounds as shocked as he feels.

“Maybe,” Loki says. His features draw together in a slight, uncertain frown. “I think so. I don’t know. He was there and gone, but it was someone else’s voice, Thor, someone was _there_ — _we aren’t the only ones left_.”

Thor sucks in a breath, feeling a bit unsteady. Other survivors. Other people left in this world.

That’s when he remembers—he had been so distracted by this, by waking up here in this survivor colony that he had almost forgotten.

Bucky Barnes.

“Where?” he asks. “Where was it coming from?”

“I don’t know.” Loki shakes his head.

“Can you get it again?”

“I don’t know,” Loki says.

“Can you trace it?” Thor asks, sounding more desperate now.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Loki says, exasperated. He stands, suddenly. “I don’t know—I don’t know anything. I just know it’s there. We need a better signal. But we won’t find it here. There’s _nothing_ here. No food, no life, no signal. It’s a dead place and if we stay, we will die with it.”

“We’ll send out scouts,” Thor says. “We will send—Valkyrie and Sif and Nebula, they are our best. They can find the signal—”

“No,” Loki says.

“They will find the signal and they can scout what areas are infested and which are better,” Thor says, louder this time, his confidence increasing with the knowledge that Bucky Barnes is out there somewhere and he must find him. “We will stay here and pack up the encampment, wait for their return and then we will—”

“ _No_ , Thor,” Loki says sharply.

Thor looks at him in surprise and finds his stepbrother’s fingers curled into fists, his posture rigid. His eyes are flashing. He’s angry.

“What?”

“This is mine,” Loki says. “You don’t get to send someone else in my place. They won’t know how. This is _mine_.”

“Loki,” Thor says, warningly. “It’s dangerous out there.”

“I know,” Loki says, voice rising. “Do you think I am unaware?”

“The forests are infested,” Thor says.

“Do you think I am _stupid_?”

“There are Skrels _everywhere_. And you—”

“I am a good fucking shot,” Loki snaps. He’s shaking, his voice and the stiff lines of his body. “I can handle my fucking self. I don’t need my _big brother_ protecting me—”

“Don’t you?” Thor’s voice is rising now too, along with his temper.

“I won’t—”

“What happened last time, Loki?” Thor hisses.

“That was _once_ —”

“One time you _nearly died_ ,” Thor glares. “One time I nearly _lost you_.”

“ _But I didn’t!_ ” Loki shouts now, his face splotchy with anger. “I have been sitting in this damned camp ever since, twiddling my thumbs, doing _nothing_. Do you think I don’t know the looks I get? Do you think I’m unaware of what everyone _says_ about me?”

“Who?” Thor says, suddenly furious. “Who is saying what about you? Tell me and I will deal with them.”

“That is the entire fucking _point_ ,” Loki hisses. “I don’t need you to. I don’t ask you to. _I can take care of myself._ ”

“I’m not letting you go,” Thor says, crossing his arms at his chest stubbornly.

“I’m not asking your permission, Thor,” Loki says. This time his voice drops, pitched low and dangerous.

Thor feels bad, he truly does, but this he will not relent on. He won’t lose Loki again. Not in this world. Not in any others.

“Try to be reasonable, Loki. We have plenty of others to go find your radio signal,” he says, calmly. Reasonably. “I need you here, with me. Helping me. This is where you belong.”

Loki nearly sways on his feet, his fists curled so tight his knuckles are pure white, his green eyes dark with fury, his shoulders trembling. He’s restraining himself. Barely.

He swallows thickly and then nods.

For a moment Thor feels an immense sense of relief, a wave that washes through him, from the top of his spine to the tips of his toes.

Then Loki smiles, sharp and bitter.

“I don’t care,” he says.

He turns on his feet and marches up the rocky staircase, leaving Thor alone to the sound of silence, and lake water lapping cold against his skin.

  
He’s gone before Thor returns to camp, his shotgun and knives and radio cleared from the tent next to Thor’s.

“He didn’t take anyone with him,” Heimdall says, finding Thor staring blankly into his brother’s tent.

“Fuck,” Thor says. “ _Fuck!_

He growls out loud and tries to kick the door in frustration, but kicking cloth is about as satisfying as punching air.

“Going out there with no one else to watch his back, with no protection…” Heimdall says, one large hand firmly on Thor’s shoulder, “It’s not safe.”

“I know,” Thor snaps. “I am _aware_.”

Heimdall’s dark eyes flash in warning and his fingers dig into Thor’s shoulder.

“Stop snapping at me,” Heimdall says. “And go after him.”

Thor, wound tight with no way to release his anger, looks at the older man uncertainly, his jaw so tight his teeth hurt.

“But the others—”

“They will understand,” Heimdall says. His expression is calm, as is his voice. There is something about Heimdall that always makes Thor pause, as though he is the rock that Thor can always crash upon.

“They trust me,” Thor says. “They’ve put their trust in me. To lead them. To save them. I can’t just leave.”

He doesn’t say it out loud: that if he abandons them here, then he also abandons them there. In every world, every Thor, always abandoning his people, just when they need him the most.

“You have done enough, Thor,” Heimdall says. There’s no way he could know what Thor is thinking, but he seems to intuit it. His fingers press harder into Thor’s shoulder and then, after a moment, relent. “Do what you need to do for yourself now. Leave the rest to us.”

Thor swallows. He thinks of all of the things his father taught him about leading—about what it meant to be king. It was this that Odin always failed to say: that at the end of the day, he could only do as much as he could do, and sometimes he would succeed and other times he would fail, and what remained was not his people’s trust in him, but his trust in _them_.

Sometimes, it was okay to let others take care of themselves.

Sometimes, it was okay for him to be selfish. It would not be the end of the world if he was.

Still, it’s not easy. Thor hesitates, the guilt tight in his stomach.

“We will be fine,” Heimdall says, knowing this as well. He squeezes Thor’s shoulder, lends him his strength. “Your brother may not be. Go to him.”

A distant memory of his stepbrother—his arm bent at an unnatural angle, his gut almost shredded, lying bloodied and still and wan in a tent. His forehead slick with fever. Thor wrapping his hand around Loki’s cold ones. Trying desperately to feel for a pulse. Finding one, shallower than it should be, barely there, but there, fluttering—the anchor he needed. He had waited by his bedside for a week before Loki’s fever had finally broken, before he realized that whatever Nebula had done had worked. It had taken a week for Loki to open his eyes again and when he had, Thor had wept.

Thor’s stomach clenches at the memory. No, he will not lose Loki again. Not this one and no others he might find.

“I’ll take Valkyrie and Sif with me,” Thor says. “And Rhodey.”

“Good choices,” Heimdall says, with a smile. He finally lets go of Thor and moves back.

Thor feels a little as though his head is spinning, but everything else is finally settling. It has been years since he’s felt so certain of a decision—it has been years since he’s _made_ a decision. He had let it get the best of him—Thanos, his grief, his depression. He had let it eat at him, whittle away all of the parts of him that had once been strong and certain and vibrant.

He thinks: he had let his grief destroy him. He thinks: he had not been nearly kind enough to himself as it had.

There’s no easy way out of it, ultimately. In his own world, in his own life, he still has nothing. He has lost everything he has ever loved; everything he has ever held close. If he stops for too long to think about it, it might overcome him again, fill his throat with sand until he can no longer breathe.

But just because he has lost, doesn’t mean he has to stay lost. It doesn’t mean everything has to _stay_ lost to him.

He will find his stupid, infuriating, reckless brother; the person he always loses first; the person he loves the very most. He will find him here, in this world, and then, when he and Bucky find the shard in this universe, he will somehow find him in his own.

That is a first step. Thor hasn’t taken a first step in a very long time.

“I leave you with T’Challa,” he says. “Whatever decision he makes, it will be the one I made as well.”

“Of course,” Heimdall says. “I will follow him as I have always followed you.”

“Heimdall,” Thor says, looking up at the older man—his confidante, his friend through every reality. “Thank you.”

Heimdall smiles and Thor misses it. He misses him.

“Bring him back safe,” Heimdall says, with a nod. “We will wait for you both.”

*

Clint gets his arms under Loki and Bucky offers a shoulder for Steve to lean against. He’s reluctant at first, but then he tries to take a step on his own and the pain must be near debilitating, because his face pales and he reaches an arm out for Bucky. Bucky gets under there and the two of them help balance Steve out, one of Steve’s hands still pressed to his side wound while his injured arm hangs limply by his side.

It takes them twice as long to get back to the bunker as it took them to get out, but the woods are blessedly quiet and there are no more monsters to go bump in the night. M’Baku and Maria Hill are at the door to greet them, worried expressions on their faces.

At least initially.

It takes a moment for Maria to pull in a sharp gasp.

“Who....is that?” she says.

“Another survivor,” Clint says. His arms are clearly straining under the dead weight of Loki’s body, but he doesn’t complain.

“Give him to me,” M’Baku says and Clint shuffles forward, tilting Loki into M’Baku’s much larger arms. He lets out a sigh of relief and immediately starts rolling his seized muscles.

Maria watches and steps back from the door.

“Let’s get inside,” she says, peering worriedly over their shoulders at the silent woods behind them. “No need to welcome in unwanted visitors.”

“They’re not vampires,” Steve mutters, which Bucky, distantly, finds a little funny.

“No,” Maria agrees. “They’d be much more manageable if they were.”

They shuffle in through the doorway and Maria closes the bunker door behind them.

  
There’s a large, spare room down one of the main hallways in the bunker. They store any extraneous supplies in the dusty cupboards, including weapons, ammunitions, and whatever medical equipment they’ve managed to scavenge from expeditions to now dead cities.

It serves as their medical room too, for lack of any better place for all of them to bleed out and be tended to. There’s a bed that’s been turned over since the last person—Maria Rambeau, after an expedition gone poorly—bled in it, and it’s here that M’Baku gently lowers Loki as Bucky, Steve, Clint, Pepper, and Tony crowd around.

Loki’s in bad shape, his skin so pale it’s nearly blue. There’s blood crusted near his temple and double puncture wounds in his right thigh, a gouge mark near his ribs, and the same claw-induced injury on his arm that Steve’s suffering. He’s filthy, he’s bloody, he’s missing a boot and wearing empty gun holsters. He has only a single remaining dagger strapped to his waist. Loki wasn’t unarmed—he was unlucky.

Pepper moves forward as M’Baku backs away, immediately issuing a string of commands to Clint, who dutifully listens and begins pulling gauze and scissors and old ointments from the cupboards.

“What is that?” Tony asks, suddenly.

Tony, who Bucky is used to spouting off a mile a minute, had seen Loki in M’Baku’s arms and fallen stunningly, shockingly silent. That was only the second most surprising thing to Bucky. The first was that he was alive at all—a strange and disconcerting realization for someone who had attended his funeral a handful of realities ago.

It makes Bucky feel, distantly, sad. He doesn’t have time to ponder it any more than that.

“It was with him,” Clint says. “Didn’t want to leave it behind.”

Clint picks up three flat containers that Pepper asks him to fill with water.

“May I?” Tony asks and Pepper, busy with unraveling the gauze, nods. He shuffles forward toward the body and, leaning over, slowly pries the black device from Loki’s ironclad hands.

At first Bucky doesn’t understand what it is. Then Tony turns a knob.

Suddenly, there’s a loud screeching noise that fills the room, so jarring that Bucky’s heart skyrockets, setting his teeth on edge. Steve groans and covers an ear, as does M’Baku, who lets out a string of curses that are directed very specifically at Tony.

“ _Shit_ ,” Tony says and turns the knob back. “Sorry.”

“Tony, what is that?” Steve asks. He’s still standing against Bucky, but Bucky can feel his weight sagging against him more and more. He’s badly hurt and he’s going to need attention as soon as possible.

“A radio,” Tony says, almost breathlessly. He straightens with the radio in his hands, and when he looks at the rest of them, his face is nearly glowing. “I knew it. _I knew it!_ The radio signal works! _It works_ —do you know what that means?”

“We get to listen to the Apocalypse’s Top Hits?” M’Baku says, his arms crossed at his abundant chest.

“No!” Tony says. He blinks. “I mean—well yes. Maybe, eventually. Not now. It _means_ others can catch the frequency. Don’t you see?”

His voice is growing higher, his eyes bright with excitement.

Behind him, Pepper, who’s started to wipe the blood from Loki using a wet cloth, shushes him.

“ _Survivors_ ,” Tony says, lowering his voice. “Any other survivors out there. All they have to do is find a radio, a walkie talkie. Some kind of device that’s compatible with radio frequencies. We can communicate to them. Do you understand? _We can find them._ ”

The air in the room suddenly feels wavy, the ground unsteady. Bucky sucks in a breath. _Survivors._ Other people in the world like them—people who haven’t died by Skrel claws yet, or been poisoned by the air or the water or whatever else fucking nuclear residue is still flooding through the planet.

Pepper takes a pair of scissors and begins to cut down Loki’s matted, bloody shirt and he makes a little sound.

“It’s okay,” she says to him softly. “If you can hear me, you’re safe. It’s going to be okay.”

The room is silent as she works; each of them holding their breaths, each of them wondering if it could be possible—if there could be _others_. The world had ended and it had continued to end, inch by inch, an infestation as terrible as the Black Plague and twice as deadly. It had been so many years since they had met any other survivors, it seemed impossible to think there could be any others left.

But if there was one, maybe there was more. Maybe they weren’t the only ones left—maybe they wouldn’t have to be.

“He was alone,” Clint says softly.

Pepper wrings a bloodied cloth in one of the containers, the water quickly flushing a bright red. She wets it again in a clean bowl and moves to wipe down his arms.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs. “But that doesn’t mean he’s by himself.”

It’s maybe foolish to think—perhaps even more foolish to hope for. But he hadn’t come into the multiverse by himself and he wasn’t planning on leaving it alone. Truthfully, he wasn’t even sure that he could.

If there are survivors here, though, then he has a chance.

If there’s Loki here, then there must be Thor.

  
The exhaustion hits him halfway into his shower. He manages to rinse most of the grime and blood loosely off his body with the first two buckets of water, but his arms fail him as he starts to lift the third. There’s no formal shower here in the bunker, the pipes having long since stopped working and elaborate water systems being even beyond Tony Stark’s capabilities, but there is a spigot of some sort that allows water to flow into a large, round plastic tub. There’s a sad plastic bucket with a metal handle next to it that’s meant to help scoop water. It’s a crude, but more or less effective means of cleaning yourself, if you could ignore how cold your skin grows in between dumping water over your head.

Bucky’s teeth are chattering and his arms are so sore, he can barely get the third bucket full of water up and over his head. He manages it somehow, sloppily, the water sloshing across the cement ground and swirling down the drain.

He’s not going to smell like spring flowers, but he won’t reek of blood and sweat either, and beggars can’t be choosers at the end of the fucking world.

He leaves the rest of the water in the tub for whoever wants to clean after him and scrubs a scratchy towel through his hair and over his aching body. He pulls on a pair of relatively clean sleep pants and and plods down the hallway toward his room, ready to throw himself onto his shitty mattress and pass out for the rest of the night.

Most of the hallway doors are closed, but the bunker looks less eerie to him this time, even with the flickering, dim lighting and his footsteps echoing against the walls. He lets out a weary sigh, when he sees light filtering through a slightly ajar door ahead of him.

He slows and pauses in front of the door, his metal hand braced lightly on the doorframe. He sucks his lower lip in between his teeth and wonders, only briefly, if this is a good idea.

That’s when he hears the little moan of pain.

It doesn’t take more than that.

Bucky lightly pushes the door open and slips inside.

  
Most of the rooms in the bunker are underground, lacking any sort of natural light. Steve has one of the few that are set just high enough that there’s a slim window set high into the wall, up near the ceiling. There’s a faint light that filters in through this window now, not illuminating much, but illuminating just enough.

Bucky closes the door gently behind him and Steve, lying shirtless in the middle of the bed, turns his head. There’s a sheen of sweat dampening his forehead and his bandages already dotted with red. His eyes are bright, glassy. He’s in an immense amount of pain.

“Steve,” Bucky says softly. He doesn’t mean for it to be an admonishment, but it comes out as one anyway, worried and disappointed, his voice as soft as his breath.

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but he doesn’t manage it. The corners of his mouth curve down in a small, pained frown. He has one hand clutched to his side, pressed against the same, bandaged area he had taken most of the damage.

Bucky’s chest is tight with worry, his anxiety ratcheting up so high for a moment he forgets to properly breathe. But then Steve looks at him and he looks like he’s going to cry, so Bucky swallows his own fears and crosses the room to his bed.

“The ointments didn’t help?” Bucky asks. His voice is gentle now, as is his expression, as is his touch.

Pepper had helped wash Steve too and then she and Clint had helped clean his wounds, apply salves, and bandage him as best as they could. There’s no painkillers in the apocalypse, so they brew him a tea of white willow bark instead, and it must help a little, but not nearly enough to take away the brunt of his pain.

Steve still doesn’t say anything and that worries Bucky. In all of the lives he’s known him, he’s never known Steve to not speak.

Bucky reaches forward, hesitating before touching, but when Steve makes no moves—when he just watches Bucky with those bright, glossy eyes—Bucky presses his flesh fingertips to his forehead. He isn’t burning up, which is a good sign, although not definitive proof that there isn’t an infection churning inside him. Bucky doesn’t know what he’ll do if something like that happens. He has no medical knowledge in this world and no means of dispensing proper medicine even if he did.

“Steve,” he says again softly, and this time there’s no veil between them, no pretense or wall. Steve is too hurt for his usual biting veneer and Bucky is hurt too, in his own way, hurt by seeing Steve hurt, hurt by having to wipe the sweat from his brow and run a hand over Steve’s trembling shoulder, and know there’s nothing he can do to help.

He tries, though.

He helps resettle Steve near the top of the bed, repositioning the pillows under him. He quietly changes the few bandages that have begun to soak through, and brews more tea for him. He helps Steve sit up in bed, lifts the chipped clay mug to his mouth and helps him drink it slowly, sip by sip.

Steve’s breathing is pained as Bucky moves around him, working silently, only little puffs of hurt sound escaping him. His injuries had looked bad on the face of it, but a hurt like this—one that renders him immobile with pain—is not something that is fully formed on the surface.

Bucky knows injuries like that. He has lived with the kind of pain that knocks the breath out of you, the kind that renders you unable to do anything except suck in a breath and close your eyes and wish for something easier.

Eventually, he runs out of things to do. He sits at the edge of the bed, watching Steve.

Steve, whose fair skin is wrecked with scars, ropes of hurt and evidence of violence etched into his body. Steve, who is nearly glowing under the faint moonlight, glowing with life, glowing with pain. Steve, who Bucky has known entire lifetimes and entire worlds—the one person he keeps losing and the one person he keeps finding.

Steve watches Bucky silently. Moonlight makes his blue eyes glow.

It hits Bucky softly, somewhere in the tangle of his chest, in the red and blue capillaries and veins, the right coronary artery and the left ventricle, the atrium and the thick wall of his superior vena cava. It’s in his lungs too, filling his alveoli and his primary bronchi, sweeping up through the hollow of his trachea, expanding, expanding, expanding, until he’s saturated with it, until his body is pulsing with it.

It’s too much and it’s simultaneously not enough and when Steve reaches for him—when Bucky, in a panic, shifts; moves to stumble back, to run from this; from the certainty of this realization, from the clarity like electricity in his blood—wordlessly, palm out; when Steve reaches for him, to call him back, reaches for him, to keep him there—it’s then that Bucky knows.

It’s the kind of knowledge that shifts the ground beneath your feet; the kind of knowledge that re-forms what you knew of yourself into what you know of yourself; the kind that re-molds your essence, re-crafts your reality.

It’s the kind of knowledge that has been waiting patiently, buried a hundred years—only waiting to be found.

Steve reaches for him and Bucky realizes then that there is no expiration date here.

There is no world large enough or reality different enough or Steve angry enough to form cracks in the foundation between them. There is no fine print here, no sunset date, no conditions or terms, clauses or what ifs.

There is only this—only _them_ —and this knowledge, this certain, irrevocable, adamantine knowledge—that Bucky loves Steve; that he has always loved Steve; that he will always love Steve, no matter what, no matter why, no matter when.

It has never been a question of worth.

It has never been a question at all. They are, together, inevitable.

It takes one hundred years, and multiple lifetimes, and only one look—one look and one outstretched hand.

Bucky takes Steve’s hand this time and crawls closer to him, crawls under the covers and touches his wrist and helps turn him gently onto his side. Steve’s breathing is labored at first, still tight with pain, but then Bucky traces a hand down from the back of his neck to his shoulders, from his shoulders down his arm, from his elbow to the sharp jut of his hips. He traces fingers down the slight curve of his back, over raised, scarred tissue, resting in the middle, splayed over the black ink of an everliving, unending phoenix.

Steve lets out a low, soft breath.

His breathing begins to ease slowly, inch by inch, scar by scar. Bucky presses his fingers to the nape of Steve’s neck. He runs his hand through the blond hair, greying in between, silver in between his fingers, silver lit by the hazy moonlight.

Bucky’s heart beats in time with Steve’s and Steve’s skin warms.

He does this for hours. He does this for days. He does it for a mere second and the center of him carves open and he thinks: it isn’t enough. And: it will never be enough.

But also: I will take whatever he is willing to give me.

Steve’s breathing evens out, eventually.

His shoulders lose their tension. He sleeps.

Bucky gathers Steve in his arms, moves him gently until Steve’s back is flush against his chest. Their skins press together, the rise and fall of Steve’s chest under Bucky’s metal fingers, gold hair brushing Bucky’s mouth. He presses a thumb to Steve’s wrist and feels his pulse, strong and steady, rolling like the tide.

Bucky leans forward and presses a kiss to the back of Steve’s neck.

Eventually, he closes his eyes too, and when he finally sleeps, it’s to the sound of Steve’s soft breathing.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I forget that this is, at the heart of it, a story of canon divergence and a loose post-EG fix-it. My list of gripes about that movie is absolutely endless, but one thing I will never forgive the Russos for is obliterating Thor's storyline. He worked through multiple movies and storylines to finally embrace the crown that Taika handed to him in Ragnarok, and in one stupid movie, the Russos took that away from him. I simply will not accept that. What the Russos took away from him, I happily and deliberately give back.
> 
> Also this chapter had one of my favorite lines: _Steve reaches for him and Bucky realizes then that there is no expiration date here._ I don't know why, but I just really loved that for Bucky (and for them).


	18. Chapter Eighteen. [ sixth oddity: post-apocalypse ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ultimately, it doesn’t matter: not mad titans or nuclear holocausts or alien invasions. It doesn’t matter the world and it doesn’t matter when it’s ended or how. It’s him and Steve—always him and Steve—in every life that’s come before them and every life that will come after. 
> 
> It’s just him and Steve, living; him and Steve, surviving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we only have two chapters left after this? It kind of seems unreal that this too-long fic is somehow coming to an end, but don't worry: in true crinklefries fashion, the last three chapters are just impossibly long.
> 
> Thank you for loving Bucky, Thor, and their dumbass counterparts so thoroughly. I hope you love this part of the post-apocalypse as much as I do. ♥

T’Challa is their best tracker, but T’Challa is also their best leader. Thor doesn’t regret leaving him with the survivors, but he misses his guidance as they tromp through the woods, weapons raised at their chests and fingers hovering carefully above triggers. The woods are mostly quiet and as they get farther and farther from the water, the lack of sound deepens, the soft silence giving away to one that’s eerie, almost unnatural.

“Skrels?” Sif asks quietly, raising her shotgun to her eye.

“No,” Rhodey says. He shakes his head nervously. “This is worse than that.”

It’s not scared, scattered wildlife, it’s no wildlife at all. Predators are terrifying, but nuclear devastation is worse. Thor hears a dead branch crunch under his boot and swallows uneasily. Everything is quiet. Everything is dead. Even Ragnarok did not feel this desolate.

Rhodey and Valkyrie do the best they can, following tracks in the soft dirt and broken brush to trace what direction Loki might have gone.

“How did he get so far ahead?” Valkyrie murmurs after a few hours of tracking. Her shoulders are tense, her expression wary and alert.

“He had a head start,” Thor says. “And he’s fast.”

That’s what he hopes, at least. The alternative is that they’re too late and the broken brush is because of something else, belonging to something else. Thor hasn’t seen any blood, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. The woods are a big place and his brother is but one man.

“This way,” Rhodey says. He’s bent by the thick trunk of an enormous tree, gnarled with age. He’s touching the ground with gloved fingertips.

Footprints.

“I think we’re getting closer,” Valkyrie says. She hoists herself on top of a fallen tree so wide that when she stands, she’s able to gain some vantage of the path ahead of them.

“Any of those fuckers?” Sif asks, looking up at her.

“No,” Valkyrie says. “But a huge path that didn’t make itself.”

Rhodey lets out a sigh and Thor curses.

“But no...other signs,” he says.

No other bodies, he means.

Valkyrie looks back at him and her expression softens.

“No, Thor,” she says. “Not other signs. Just a gut feeling and...fresh wreckage.”

Thor inhales, steadying his nerves. He nods.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  
They follow the path for another hour. The trees are slivered, the brush wrecked by something much larger than natural. There are split branches and logs ripped straight down the middle littering the flattened forest areas. Rhodey finds footprints in the mud every so often and Thor’s anxiety lessens, although barely. Once, they cross a tree that has claw marks gouged so deep into the bark, the trunk had nearly snapped in half from it.

“They’re getting bigger,” Valkyrie murmurs, stopping to brush a hand against the wood.

They shift uneasily.

“They’re getting more vicious,” Sif grunts and fingers her knives.

Thor hasn’t seen a Skrel in person yet, but he has fleeting memories of what they look like—enormous, ugly brown things with natural, external armor and a vicious kind of bloodthirst behind multiple, vacuous eyes. Bilgesnipes were bad enough, but these fuckers make the rock creatures and mountain trolls look like tame pets. Such creatures have never been natural to Midgard, but then, Thor has also never seen anything quite like Skrels anywhere else in the Nine Realms.

Whatever has happened in this universe has ruined most of it. Maybe the whole place is cursed. Either way, there’s no going back.

“Guys,” Rhodey suddenly calls out from a few dozen yards ahead.

Valkyrie and Sif give questioning looks, but Thor already hates the cautious tone of Rhodey’s voice.

“What is it?” he asks, approaching the other man.

Rhodey’s expression is carefully neutral and that’s how Thor knows it’s not good news.

“I’m...sorry, Thor,” he says and Thor’s stomach clenches.

He follows Rhodey’s line of vision and that’s when he sees the clearing ahead of them.

Thor sucks in a shocked breath as Sif makes a horrified sound next to him.

It’s blood.

Blood streaked on tree trunks. Blood in the brush. Blood splashed across the torn up, muddy ground.

It’s a lot of blood. It’s a fucking bloodbath.

And in the middle of the scene, a single boot.

  
Thor has lost his brother in so many lifetimes, in so many ways. He’s lost him when he was alive, and he’s lost him when he’s thought him dead, and he’s lost him for real too, for good, throttled by a cruel, evil Titan in front of his very eyes. If Loki has died here too, Thor is glad not to have seen it. He’s seen his brother die—or almost die—or thought him dead—no less than three times. A fourth is more than he could have borne.

Still, he sinks to the ground next to the bloodied boot and he feels like he’s being cleaved in two. It’s a terrible, impossible ache, unlike any other he has felt before nor will likely feel again. It is a sharp, acute thing, buried deep in his chest, as though the creature had found not his brother, but his heart instead, had taken it between its claws and pierced it with its talons. It’s not the manner of death, really, or even the blood spilled because of it. It’s the death itself—one more Loki, gone. One more Thor, without him.

Thor has held his grief at bay for so long, has locked it behind bottles, dulled it with tankards and shallow, half-smiles. He was better at ignoring it before; simply shoving it to the back of his throat with a mouth full of beer. But he hasn’t dulled his senses in multiple universes now and all of his defenses have finally come crumbling down.

Thor touches the boot and he mourns.

Unfortunately, Thor doesn’t have the fucking time to do more than that.

He suddenly hears a sharp gasp and a curse from behind him and he’s just aware enough to hear a high-pitched screech tear through the air before he feels something hard and sharp hit his back and he flies forward and slams into a tree.

  
“Fuck,” Thor swears, his chest searing with pain. The tree in front of him splinters against the force of his impact and he tries to suck air into his lungs the best he can after his breath is knocked clear out of him. He manages to stumble to his feet and stumble back, hand pressed to his bruised ribs.

There’s mixed shouting around him and he looks up in time to see the Skrel—large, bigger than he even remembers from the other Thor’s memories, towering as tall as a fucking tree, its many-eyed head reaching into the sky as its hard, scaled tail lashes out at Valkyrie while it also tries to spear Sif with its claws.

Thor clutches his side and, wincing in pain, pushes himself forward. Rhodey grabs his shotgun and levels it up, aiming in between the eyes. Sif screams as one of the talons knicks her side and Valkyrie’s forced back into a tree, panting as she fights with the tail. Rhodey curses and gets in three shots, which ricochet off of what could be its jaw or its stomach, before the other claw comes swinging.

“No!” Thor shouts and mobilizes, throwing himself forward with his sawed off shotgun raised. He tries to sink a bullet into the Skrel’s shoulder, another aimed for its stomach. The bullets hit the exoskeleton and crumple, dropping like useless chunks of lead.

“Motherfucker!” Rhodey yells, forced to dodge sideways as the claw comes at him again. He tries to raise his gun, but the claw comes back around, knocking it out of his hands. His eyes widen just as the claw bears down on him. “ _Fuck!_ ”

“Rhodey!” Thor shouts, aiming at the fucker’s hand and shooting round after round. It doesn’t pierce the armor, but it does anger the Skrel enough that it changes its direction, the claw twisting mid-air and shooting toward Thor as Rhodey dodges behind a tree.

Thor’s eyes widen and he has a split second to see it coming, his heart ratcheting up, his blood pulsing in his ears.

He lets out a soft “ _Oh_ ” and the claw tears—

Into the tree next to him, splintering the great Oak in half.

Thor’s brain takes a moment to catch up with him, his adrenaline so high, his death so imminent that he can’t think. He watches, confused, as bark and splinters burst into the air and then the Skrel is shrieking—screeching so loudly, so deafeningly that it’s threatening to boil Thor’s blood.

He claps his hands over his ears and he hears the others shout and do the same, the sound so painfully bloodcurdling that it forces him to his knees.

Thor closes his eyes, trying to focus on the beating of his heart, his mouth full of the copper taste of blood, his head hurting, his ribs aching, his brain— _pulsing_?

Is this a new weapon? Is this some kind of monster evolution, to abandon armor and claws and emit a scream so high it can kill on the spot?

He thinks it might be. He thinks they might all die.

Thor pants, trying to catch his breath. His head is spinning from the sound and he feels himself retch, even though he doesn’t register it until he finds his hand wiping the sick from his mouth.

It’s only when he can finally hear the sound of his thoughts that he realizes that the shrieking has stopped.

He forces himself to look back up from where he’s been driven to his knees, one hand curled into the ground, the other still at his mouth.

There are three shots dead center, in between the Skrel’s eyes. Its brain has exploded and it’s tipped over, lying dead on its side.

Thor drags in a ragged breath and tries to push himself to his feet. He only barely manages.

“Val,” he says hoarsely. “Sif.”

There’s no sound and Thor starts to panic, stumbling forward.

“Sif?” he calls loud. “Val!”

Next to him, he thinks he hears a familiar groan. Rhodey.

Thor feels overwhelmed with relief, grateful enough to stumble over to his friend.

“Are you all right?” he asks, sinking beside Rhodey’s body.

Rhodey’s eyes flicker open and he groans again, then nods.

“Yeah,” he rasps out. “Thought that noise was gonna kill me if the claw didn’t. Fuck.”

Thor’s head has started to pound, so he starts to nod and then stops.

“The others?” Rhodey asks.

 _I don’t know_ , Thor starts to say, but he doesn’t have to.

Rhodey closes his eyes and lets his head fall back.

“Fuck.”

“They’re fine,” an unfamiliar familiar voice says.

“Well, a bit knocked up,” someone else says.

Thor and Rhodey look up then, both tensing, and see Sif and Val, battered and bloodied, each held up by a stranger. Sif’s eyes are shut and there’s blood running down the corner of her mouth. Val’s eyes are fluttering, but she’s conscious enough to be limping next to her rescuer.

Rescuer.

“Holy shit,” Rhodey says, his eyes widening with shock.

“Hi boys,” Natasha Romanoff says, with a sideways smile.

“Lucky for you, my wife’s a good shot,” Carol Danvers, who’s holding Sif up by herself easily, grins.

Next to her, a Black woman who Thor isn’t familiar with gives them both a small nod.

“Lucky for you, we came looking for other survivors,” she says.

Thor helps Rhodey sit up and then hobble to his feet. It’s only as he gets an arm under him that he realizes what she’s said.

“Wait,” he says, looking up. “ _Other_ survivors?”

  
Natasha, Carol, and Maria tell them that there’s a survivor colony only a few miles from where they were found.

“There’s about a dozen of us total,” Maria says as they cut through the path back to the survivors’ bunker. “We’ve been about two years without seeing a single other soul and now…”

“We didn’t know there was anyone else left,” Rhodey says. He’s managing to walk on his own now, although Thor stays close so that he can lean on him if need be. “There’s about a dozen of us too.”

“How did you find us?” Thor asks and then, high voice tightening, “You’re sure he’s okay?”

Natasha had been the one to answer him earlier—about some of their scouts finding Loki in the middle of the woods, after a Skrel attack they had barely survived themselves.

“He’s alive,” Natasha reassures him. She’s the smallest of the three new women, but Valkyrie has her arm around her still and the two of them shuffle along carefully, avoiding fallen debris and stopping when Valkyrie needs to take a breath.

“We were on duty,” Carol says. “Morning shift. Night shift took care of the two Skrels that tried to chew up your friend, but there’s always a few more that show up after we kill.”

Thor lets out a tense breath and nods. Loki’s alive. That’s the only thing that’s keeping him going, one foot after another, even though his ribs feel they’re on fire and his body aches all over.

“You show up a second later and we would’ve been Skrel food,” Rhodey mutters.

“I don’t believe in luck,” Maria says, stepping over a log. “Only good timing.”

What is better luck than good timing? Thor thinks, but is too tired to say aloud.

“Well thank whoever for good timing, then,” Rhodey says.

“Amen to that.” Maria nods at him.

They walk along for a few more minutes, silent but for the crackling of leaves and clods of dirt under their feet.

“How much farther?” Valkyrie rasps, next to them.

They move past a clearing and see the trees thinning.

“Just a little more,” Maria says. “Then you can see how the other half survive.”

  
The bunker is set into the side of the hill, only one, fortified steel wall with slivers of reinforced windows and a set of doors visible above the ground.

The group of them limp from the woods out into the slight dip before the hill, the ground sloping down before it curves back up. They’re barely halfway across the clearing when Maria lifts a communication device to her mouth and says, “Incoming.”

The front doors swing open just as they crest the hill and Thor nearly lets go of Rhodey in his immense relief.

“Holy shit,” Bucky Barnes says, his eyes wide and an unusually open expression reflecting the same. “Thank _fuck_.”

“Bucky,” Thor says and feels an unquantifiable amount of tension slough off his shoulders. He hadn’t even realized he had been holding it there. “Thank the Norns.”

“Norns?” Rhodey mutters next to him.

“You know him?” Natasha asks as they come to a rest in front of the bunker. She doesn’t sound surprised, but then, Natasha Romanoff has never sounded surprised about anything in all of the years that Thor has known her.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, eyeing Thor. “We go way back.”

“I am glad to see you alive,” Thor says. “I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” Bucky says. “I thought the same.”

Thor’s a little dizzy with relief; it spreads through him, warm and thick, like syrup. He doesn’t know what he would have done if Bucky hadn’t ended up in this world with him. He doesn’t know what he would have done if he had died or if he just hadn’t found him at all.

After so many multiverses together, Thor realizes he’s come to rely on the other man and his companionship. No—his friendship.

Maybe it isn’t relief so much as it is something more.

“Let’s move this inside,” Maria murmurs and Carol hums in agreement, although that might be because her arms are straining under Sif’s weight by now.

“She okay?” Bucky looks at them, dark brows furrowing as he moves aside.

“Skrel attack,” Carol says. “We need to get her a bed.”

“We moved Loki,” Bucky says as the rest of them shuffle through the doorway.

Thor looks at him immediately and Bucky gives him a small nod and a reassuring look. Again, Thor is flooded with relief.

“He’s doing a lot better,” Bucky says. “Whatever Pepper’s done should qualify her as a wizard. Or witch, whatever.”

“She’s way too good for Stark,” Natasha mumbles and Bucky snorts.

“You’re telling me.”

“We’ll take Valkyrie and Sif to the medical room,” Carol says to Thor, then nods at Rhodey. “You want to follow?”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says. “If she’s got anything for pain, I wouldn’t say no.”

“She makes a mean tea,” Carol says with a brief smile and Rhodey leaves Thor’s side to hobble next to her as they set off down the right hallway with Natasha, Sif, and Maria.

Then it’s just Thor and Bucky and the two of them let out an enormous breath.

“Holy shit,” Bucky says again and this time Thor can’t help it. He’s no longer an Asgardian God, but he’s still able to crush Bucky to him, embracing the other man in gratitude. It aggravates his ribs, but by the Norns does he not care.

“This world is terrible,” Thor says and Bucky, after a moment of surprised tension, relaxes and wraps his arm around Thor as well. “Have you seen any of it? There are these enormous creatures.”

“You’re fucking telling me,” Bucky says, pulling back. His dark curls are shorter in this reality, but he isn’t as slight as he has been in some universes. He’s built for the end of the world, the same as Thor, and the same as Loki, in his own way. “They nearly killed Steve.”

“Steve?” Thor asks eagerly. “He’s here as well? He’s alive?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says and then, mysteriously, tinges a little pink.

Thor raises an eyebrow and Bucky gives him a sheepish look.

“We’re—it’s complicated, but.”

“But?” Thor says.

He can already feel himself grinning. Everything is awful here and his brother nearly died and his body aches and his feet feel as though they are on fire and there are perhaps only two dozen people left alive on the planet, but some things will never change. For example, the fact that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are clearly soulmates, although they have yet to actually admit it to one another.

“It seems as though we’re...exes,” Bucky says.

“Exes?” Thor says, surprised.

“We were...married,” Bucky says. He appears to be so embarrassed that he’s almost squirming. At the least, he’s scratching his nose in embarrassment.

“Oh?” Thor’s grin returns.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Bucky says in a manner that he must think is gruff, but is definitely a whine. “We were married, but clearly we aren’t anymore.”

That is disappointing, Thor has to admit. But—

“Well you do not look too broken about it.”

“Well,” Bucky says.

He doesn’t have to say anything more for Thor to understand. There is only one thing such a _well_ with such an abashed tone can mean. Thor’s grinning again, wider this time, and he claps a large hand down on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Excellent! Could it be that it has taken half a dozen different realities for you to finally understand?”

“What?” Bucky says, knees knocking together.

“I must admit, I thought we would never see the day.”

“What day?”

“Well, all of us thought that. You two are very dumb and even more stubborn.”

“Hey!” Bucky protests, poorly.

“I am infinitely pleased,” Thor says brightly.

“That’s not—”

Thor’s brows draw together. “Are you and Steve Rogers not sleeping together?”

Bucky flushes.

“I—well.”

“Oh,” Thor says seriously. He lowers his voice. “Is it...not good?”

“It’s—good!” Bucky squeaks. Actually _squeaks_.

“Ah!” Again, Thor brightens. “Excellent. As I suspected it must be.”

Bucky groans and scrubs his hand over his face.

Thor looks at Bucky kindly, feeling genuinely happy for him and Steve. The two had been through more together in _one_ lifetime than most people would experience in multiple. And that was to say nothing of how many connected and disconnected lifetimes they had shared. Thor knows something of that pain; of the timing never being right, and of admitting things to yourself when it was far too late.

“As I said,” Thor says mildly and gently begins to steer Bucky through the hallway of the bunker. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he doesn’t need to. “Half a dozen realities, some multiverse hangovers, but perhaps this will all be worth it, yes? Maybe this is what the Tesseract wanted all along.”

“What is it, some multidimensional Infinity Stone-powered matchmaker?”

“Well, you never know,” Thor says. “The Stones have many powers and purposes.”

“Maybe,” Bucky sighs, finally giving in. Then he seems to become aware of being manhandled. “Hey, where are we going?”

“I do not know, this is _your_ bunker,” Thor says.

Bucky nods at him.

“You want me to take you to Loki?”

“Please,” Thor says, gratefully.

“I got you,” Bucky says, pressing a hand to Thor’s shoulder, and takes a left at the next intersection.

_I got you._

The thing is, Thor...believes him. When Bucky had shown up in space, nearly begging Thor to help him find Steve, Thor hadn’t wanted to listen. He had been content as he was, drifting aimlessly from planet to planet, alone with his misery and the cheapest glass of ale.

Or if not content, then at least too heart-heavy to strive for anything different. Anything _more_.

He hadn’t known Bucky then and, simply put, he hadn’t wanted to know him. The Avengers were in his past, as were the Asgardians, much like Asgard and his family and every person he had ever loved. He had been given a crown and he had handed it to someone else. Thor had figured: he had lost everything, so what was the purpose in trying to rebuild anything?

It had made sense to him then, buried in loss as he had been.

That seems a lifetime ago now.

“Here,” Bucky says and they stop in front of a closed doorway. “He’s sleeping, I think. He was pretty injured, but Pepper cleaned his wounds and has been redressing them like clockwork. I wouldn’t…” He stops and runs a hand through his hair. “Just be gentle, okay?”

Thor nods. He’s touched by Bucky’s concern. He’s touched that despite never knowing his brother anywhere else, at any time else, and despite knowing what Loki had done on Midgard and what he has been villainized for, Bucky would care for him here and now.

“Bucky,” Thor says.

His companion—no, his _friend_ looks up at him. He has blue-grey eyes, which, for the first time since they have started this misadventure, seem lighter. Maybe brighter.

Thor _is_ happy for him. That had not been a lie.

“Thank you,” he says softly.

A look of surprise flashes across Bucky’s face, then his expression smooths into a small smile.

“Yeah,” he says. “No problem. I’m glad we found you.”

Thor looks at the closed door and Bucky, turning, sees someone down the hallway. He lets out a breath that Thor recognizes. It isn’t simply that he sees this person—it’s something deeper than that, more visceral. A visible lightness. Unmistakable longing.

Thor is pretty sure he knows who his friend has seen.

“I’m tired of falling through the universe,” Thor says to him. “I’ve met all manners of Loki and do you know what?”

“What?” Bucky asks, eyes flickering back to him.

“They have each only made me miss my own,” Thor says with a smile. It’s not a sad one this time.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He lets out a little laugh and runs a hand through his hair again. “Yeah.”

They’re silent for a moment, Bucky staring back after Steve, Thor with his hand on the doorknob.

“Maybe after this, we find our own,” Thor says. “We tell them things we have been hiding for a long time.”

Bucky nods and looks briefly back at Thor.

“Then we go home,” he says.

Thor looks at him—his unlikely companion and even more unlikely friend—and smiles back.

“Yes,” he says to Bucky Barnes. “I would like that very much.”

  
In nearly two thousand years, Thor has rarely seen his brother at peace. As a child, he had been a fitful sleeper, tossing from bad dreams and waking up at the slightest sound. He had hated thunder, which was ironic because sometimes the thunder was unavoidable, with the small God of Thunder being raised beside him in Asgard. On some nights, Loki would try to weather his night fears alone. Most nights, he would knock once on Thor’s door and when Thor pulled his blanket aside, he would crawl into bed next to him.

Loki had grown, but he hadn’t become any less tortured, in sleep certainly, but also when he had been awake.

It’s been a long time since Thor has been able to sit next to him on a bed and press a thumb in the space between his brows and not have to smooth the wrinkle of discontent that lives there.

Maybe it is a testament to how hurt he is, or maybe this world’s Loki has demons that Thor does not know about, but which do not haunt his sleep. Either way, Thor sits next to him and smooths back his sweaty, tangled hair and is surprised to find no wrinkle or shadow on his brother’s face.

Loki rests and every once in a while his breath catches in a wheeze, as though suffering through some hurt, but never do his brows furrow. He has no nightmares and for this, Thor is grateful.

  
He doesn’t know how long he sits next to him, only that eventually his eyes flutter open and it’s only when they do that he realizes he had slid down in bed and fallen asleep.

Green eyes peer at him, calm and relieved.

Loki is turned on his side, a hand cushioned under his pillow, watching Thor as he comes awake.

“I got the signal to work,” he says softly.

Thor turns his head on his own pillow.

“You fool,” he says, his voice equally measured and equally gentle. “You are going to be the death of me.”

Loki shakes his head a little. Thor watches him as his brother reaches a hand forward, shifts blond hair away from Thor’s forehead.

“No,” Loki says. “You stay alive.”

“Without you?” Thor asks.

Loki says nothing for a moment. He continues to work his hand into Thor’s hair, carding gold between his long, thin fingers.

“Would that be so bad?”

Thor closes his eyes. He has spent lives with Loki and lives without. He hates him, sometimes, has hated him often, and has loved him all the same—through betrayal and redemption and simple, quiet moments in their world and all of the others.

Loki has been everything to him, his entire life. His brother, his friend; his confidante, his rival. Loki has been his greatest ally and his worst enemy, his family and his lover. For two Asgardians—two Gods of unparalleled, unfathomable lifetimes—it is possible to have been all of these things, to have hated and to have loved, and at the end, to be nothing without this one person.

If Thor is the sun, then Loki is the moon, and without the sun and the moon, the world would be nothing.

So Thor takes a shaky breath and feels Loki press his fingertips to his mouth.

“Yes,” Thor says.

“What would happen?” Loki asks. “If I left you?”

“I would survive,” Thor replies and opens his eyes. “But it would not be a happy survival.”

Loki’s eyes glimmer, his mouth curving into a half-smile.

“Your worth is not tied to me, brother,” Loki says.

He doesn’t know how this Loki knows this; how he could possibly understand. But then, Thor thinks, maybe this is always the way with them. Maybe Loki will always know him better than he knows himself and maybe he will always understand Loki, in ways even Loki will not comprehend.

Maybe the concept of love and worth has always been the same: for Thor, to be loved, he must be worthy, and for him to be worthy, he must be loved. When one has grown up having only felt love and having only been told they are worthy, the two become indistinguishable.

Loki, who had grown up so differently, has understood the distinction for far longer than Thor has. He has not always been loved, but he has always felt himself worthy.

This is the nature of being opposites, of being two halves of the same whole.

“I know,” Thor says. “It is not a matter of worth.”

“It isn’t?” Loki asks.

It has taken Thor too long to understand this. That he is loved and that he is worthy. But that even if he weren’t—even if he had lost all of the love he had ever been given, then he could still be worthy. That, perhaps, he always had been. Is that what his mother had tried to tell him, when he had caught a glimpse of her in the past?

“No,” Thor says. “With you or without, I am worthy. I have tried my best and even if that means I have ruined everything in the process, I am _still_ worthy.”

Loki smiles.

“Of what?”

“Many things,” Thor says, in response. He smiles too. “But as I said, it is not a question of worth.”

Loki laughs then, a soft thing—not mocking, just amused.

“Okay,” he says. “What is it a question of then?”

Thor looks at his brother softly. He is, as ever, immeasurably fond.

“I would miss you,” he says, honestly. “If you left me, I would survive, but I would still desperately miss you.”

Loki falls quiet to that. His fingertips now at Thor’s jaw, his eyes fluttering, as though this is too much for him to bear, or, maybe, just that he has been awake for too long while injured.

“All right,” he says.

Thor watches him and Loki opens his eyes again.

“All right what?” Thor asks.

Loki smiles then—really smiles. It is a soft, sincere, sleepy thing.

He shifts closer, tucks his head under Thor’s chin, and wraps an arm loosely around Thor’s waist.

“If you’re going to miss me so much,” Loki says, “then it’s better if I don’t leave you at all.”

**art:** "Then it is better I do not leave you at all," Loki says to Thor; **art by:** nalonzooo

*

There’s a frisson of excitement running through the bunker. Finding other survivors long after they had given up hope that there might be other people left in the world is good news in a time when good news was practically nonexistent.

Pepper, Clint, and Maria work closely together to help clean and dress Valkyrie, Sif, and Rhodey’s wounds. Sif is worse off for the wear, so she’s given something to help her sleep and is left tucked into the bed in the medical room, with Pepper promising to come check up on her once an hour.

Valkyrie and Rhodey are better off and Thor isn’t too bad once he’s allowed a bath and given a strong brew of white willow bark tea.

“Do I like this taste?” he leans over toward Bucky and asks and Bucky makes a face.

“I tried some of Steve’s earlier,” Bucky says. “I think I prefer pain.”

Thor chuckles at that and Bucky’s mouth twists up at the corner. The two of them have convened in the kitchen with the others—Loki, Valkyrie, and Rhodey, Natasha and Sam, Carol and Maria Hill. Pepper and Maria Rambeau are on guard duty, while Clint, Tony, and M’Baku are out on hunting shift.

Loki picks the tea from Thor’s hand.

“If you are going to complain, I will drink it and you can deal with your aching back.”

Bucky raises a single eyebrow at Thor and Thor turns pink, while coughing.

“I was thrown into a tree by a Skrel,” he explains and Bucky grins.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

The energy in the kitchen is high, the bodies crowded close and everyone talking at once—Sam and Natasha fascinated by Valkyrie, while Carol is speaking animatedly to Rhodey. It’s more than new bodies, it’s new people, new information—stories of what’s happening out there, about what they’ve missed, what they’ve left behind, and, maybe, about what can be done.

“There are nearly a dozen of us,” Thor is saying out loud once the chatter dims slightly and Natasha asks him to tell them about the other colony. “I have left the rest with T’Challa and my good friend Heimdall, both of whom will be packing the camp and protecting the others while we find a place to move to.”

“Move?” Steve asks.

Bucky immediately looks up and sees Steve standing by the doorway, his expression cautious, his arms crossed loosely at his chest.

“Yes,” Thor says. “We have been camped near water, which has prevented much of the Skrel attacks you experience here.”

“So why leave?” Steve says, frowning.

“It is contaminated,” Thor says. “The water.”

“Excess spillover or leftovers from the nuclear disaster, whatever you want to call it,” Rhodey says. He’s pulled a seat out from the table and is sitting next to Carol, who’s leaning against a corner wall of the kitchen. “Fucked up the whole water supply. And everything else too.”

“But you’ve been using it?” Sam asks, concerned.

“Didn’t have much of a choice,” Valkyrie adds. “No one’s died of it yet, but you know. Cancer was bad enough before the nuclear plant went ten Chernobyl-sized explosions at once and wiped out most of the planet. I just assume at some point we’ll start sprouting extra legs and heads anyway.”

Steve’s frown deepens.

“It isn’t ideal,” Thor says, watching the rest of the survivors from the other colony. “We know this. But it is what was available to us and it had worked well enough. Until now.”

“Someone sprouted an extra head?” Sam asks.

“No,” Thor says and Bucky can hear Loki mutter _allegedly_ under his breath next to his brother. “But it’s killed all of the wildlife in the area. There is nothing. No fish, no birds, no deer. Nothing by sea or land or air. If we stay there we’ll starve.”

There’s a rumble of concern through the room as everyone shifts uneasily. Bucky’s eyes are on Steve and the slight furrow between his brows is familiar, as is the set of his jaw, and the hard look in his eyes. This is Steve worried. This is Steve already working out a plan.

“We could all fit here,” Sam says, although he doesn’t sound convinced. “It’ll be a little cramped, but—”

“It doesn’t solve anything,” Natasha says. She’s up on the counter, her hands braced against the edge, her legs swinging out lightly under her. “They come here and we live in tight quarters, sure, and we have more people for hunting, but that’s more mouths to feed. Not like wildlife’s teeming over here either, with the uptick in Skrel attacks.”

Loki, who is pressed close to Thor, looks up at that.

“There have been more attacks?”

Natasha’s green eyes focus on Loki. The two of them stare at one another for a moment, green assessing green, and Bucky has this queer feeling that he’s seeing one person split in two, or at least mirror reflections of the same person.

“Wasn’t that noticeable at first,” Natasha says, then nods. “But yeah. There’s been a slow surge over the last few months. We kill one and two come back. We kill two and the next time there’s three. We’re tired and running out of ammunition.”

Thor takes a rattling breath and his shoulders slump forward. He looks as dejected as Bucky has seen him in a couple of universes.

“So what do we do?” Thor asks. “What is there left for us to do when everything around us is dying and the only thing is hostile to our very existence?”

There’s an uneasy silence that ripples through the room at the question.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Steve finally says.

Everyone’s gaze flickers toward the door. Steve’s arms are still crossed, but he looks resolved. He’s made his assessments and he’s come to a decision.

Whatever you call him—Captain America or the Commander or Cap—at the end of the day, it’s always him: Steve Rogers.

“We leave,” Steve says. “There’s nothing left for us here and there’s nothing left for...Thor’s colony where they are. So we come together and we all head north. Toward New York City.”

“New York City?” Rhodey asks. His expression is cautious, but his voice is curious. “Why New York?”

“Even if it’s ruined, there will be things there. Buildings, food. Radios, technology, leftover infrastructure,” Steve says, shifting on his feet. “Supplies we can salvage. Maybe more survivors. We can find what’s been left behind and start over. We can start again.”

Starting over, after an apocalypse. After the world ends, what is there left for everyone else to do but this: restart, rebuild, start anew and try and try again. It’s the same no matter the cause—a mad Titan and his gauntlet or a nuclear disaster and an alien infestation. They’re weary—beaten and weathered—each and every one of them, because resiliency doesn’t mean you’re not tired. But it does mean that you persist. It means you survive and you keep surviving, even after the end has come and gone.

“Survivors, huh?” Sam says into the silence.

“Yeah,” Steve says.

“We don’t know what happened up there,” Sam muses.

“No,” Steve replies.

Sam gives him a slow nod, then begins to smile.

“Could be a lot of survivors.”

“Yeah. Could be.” Steve returns Sam’s smile with a broadening one of his own.

The City that breaks, Bucky thinks. It’s attacked by humans. It’s attacked by aliens. It is attacked and it breaks and it breaks and it comes back to life. The City that never sleeps. The City that never stays down.

It’s funny. New York City is a lot like Steve. It’s a lot like all of them.

“If there’s one thing New York is known for, it’s surviving,” Bucky finally says, looking up at Steve.

Steve holds his injured arm in his opposite hand and slowly nods.

“If there’s one thing New Yorkers are known for,” he says. “It’s being survivors.”

Steve catches Bucky’s eyes and holds his gaze for a moment—unyielding, unrelenting, unblinking. Who would know better than Bucky, what that means?

Here, at the end of the world, it’s just him and Steve. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter: not mad titans or nuclear holocausts or alien invasions. It doesn’t matter the world and it doesn’t matter when it’s ended or how. It’s him and Steve—always him and Steve—in every life that’s come before them and every life that will come after.

It’s just him and Steve, living; him and Steve, surviving.

  
There are plans to make and logistics to discuss. How they’re going to get the rest of the colony and when and how to get to New York after that and how long that might take. How to survive on the long road up. What to take with them. Whether it’s a good idea to leave their bunker behind. Whether they have any other choice.

It takes a few hours and Steve starts to fade after a while. He would never willingly show it, but Bucky is always watching him and he knows the signs as sure as he knows his own pulse; the way his posture grows more rigid, the tight arms across his chest, the wan pallor and the tick in his jaw and the way his eyes go in and out of focus. Steve’s still recovering from his own injuries and he’s been on his feet for far too long.

Bucky gets up from next to Thor and Thor, leaning in toward Loki, barely notices. No one notices and that’s just fine. Bucky notices Steve enough for the rest of them and the only person whose notice he cares about is Steve’s.

“What?” Steve asks in annoyance as Bucky comes up to him.

Bucky touches his shoulder.

“Let’s go,” he says.

“I’m listening,” Steve says and tries to turn his attention back to the room.

“You can listen later,” Bucky says.

“No I can’t,” Steve replies through grit teeth.

Bucky sighs and curls his fingers around Steve’s shoulder and tugs at him until Steve gives him his full, undivided attention. Steve is full of spitfire and just ire, but he’s also hurt. He’s also tired.

It doesn’t take much, when he’s like this.

“Steve,” Bucky says softly, but firmly. “Let’s go.”

Steve almost sways on his feet, his mouth thinning, his eyes like flint. Bucky doesn’t look away and maybe that’s what does it.

Steve’s stubborn anger drains, his fight giving away.

“Okay,” he says and turns. “Let’s go.”

  
They’re quiet as they walk down the hallway, Steve a few steps ahead of Bucky. Bucky’s never had a favorite Steve, really. He’s known Steve big and he’s known Steve small and now he’s known him somewhere in between. There isn’t a Steve he likes the most. He is devoted to all of them, incontrovertibly in love with all of them.

Still, he likes the slight slope of his shoulders here, how he’s not large, but certainly not small. Or rather, he’s healthy. That’s the best part, if Bucky had to choose. That Steve doesn’t have the serum and doesn’t have the muscles or the height or the healing, but he still has the health.

It’s all he’s ever wanted for him.

Steve stops by a closed door and Bucky comes to a slow stop in surprise.

Steve looks up at him, his blue eyes glinting in the dim, hallway light.

He pushes open the door to Bucky’s room and slips inside.

  
It’s a strange scene; the push and pull of memory. Steve, sitting on his bed here, looking up at him expectantly. There’s moonlight filtering in through the slight slant of a window, Steve glowing in the amber haze. Steve, his golden hair already mussed, his fingers curled into the side of the bed.

Bucky closes the door behind him, his heart thudding near his ears. His throat is dry, his flesh hand feeling clammy.

Steve has been in his bed a hundred times—when they were growing up, when they were sharing a shitty one bedroom apartment in tenement housing together, when he was in Wakanda, on a bedroll on the ground, when they were in their own, less shitty apartment, Bucky waking up sweating from nightmares and needing comfort, needing anyone—needing Steve.

Steve had never said anything about it, just rolled over and let Bucky crawl into bed with him, shifted the covers up until Bucky had his nose digging into the back of Steve’s neck, his arm around Steve’s narrow waist. Bucky had always wanted to be held, but never knew how to ask. Still, Steve knew. Halfway through the night he would wake up suddenly and realize they had switched, rolled the other way, Bucky on his side and Steve with his arm around Bucky’s middle, protecting him.

It had felt terrible enough to take and even worse to admit. So he never had. He had never said anything and neither had Steve.

This is different from that. This is different from all of those times.

Bucky’s skin feels tight, his pulse skittering in his throat.

Steve holds out a hand and Bucky goes to him.

  
Bucky brackets him in, his knees to either side of Steve’s thighs. Steve sits back, tilting his face up to him. One hand clutching Bucky’s side to hold him steady.

Bucky’s hands frame Steve’s face, flesh on pale, cool skin and the flash of dull silver against the same. Steve’s other hand at Bucky’s mouth, tracing it.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asks, quietly.

Steve makes a low humming sound that Bucky wants to swallow; it skims across his skin, sinks underneath until it’s in his bloodstream.

“Yes,” Steve says. “And no.”

Bucky’s expression flickers and Steve’s fingers move, smoothing out the wrinkle between Bucky’s brows.

“We didn’t work before, Buck,” Steve says, low and devastated. “We tried and we didn’t work.”

“Do you regret it?” Bucky asks.

Steve shakes his head. His eyes fluttering, his long eyelashes dusting the top of his high cheekbones.

“I loved you,” Steve says, like a closely held truth. _I loved you._ “I’ve always loved you. Ever since we were kids. When we got married—I thought I’d never be happier. Didn’t think it was possible.”

“It wasn’t,” Bucky says. “How could it be?”

“But we fought,” Steve says, voice now tinged with something mournful. “God, all we did was fight. We didn’t talk. We hurt each other, Bucky. I loved you so fucking much and all I wanted to do was kill you sometimes.”

There’s something they say, Bucky thinks. There’s a fine line between love and hate. He and Steve have never hated each other before—not he and his Steve, not them in their world. But they have always been everything to each other, a fever pitch higher than devotion, something so fundamental, something so obsessive it could only be qualified as—soulmates.

If such a thing has ever existed, it was them.

But he sees how thin that line is. He understands that if he and Steve hadn’t circled each other so tightly, hadn’t had things happen to them the way they had, maybe they, too, would have loved each other so much that they were destined to fail.

Sometimes love is like that. Sometimes, it’s simply too much.

Bucky slides his flesh fingers up Steve’s jaw, hears the slight hitch in his breath.

“When the world ended,” Bucky says, quietly. “What was your last thought? Just before it did.”

Steve swallows thickly. Bucky watches the bulge in his throat go up and then slide down.

“We were separated then,” Steve says. His low voice is quiet, his words like a long-held confession. “Already divorced. I remember that day. Work was awful. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. I fucked up something big—I don’t remember what now. I let everyone down. Thought I was going to get fired.”

Bucky says nothing. He can see it flicker across Steve’s features, the pull of memory.

“I came home to an empty apartment.” He swallows again and looks down. “God, I was so lonely. I missed you so fucking much. All I wanted to do was pick up the phone. Tell you about my day. Ask you to come over so you could hold me.”

Bucky chest aches. He slides his fingers back down Steve’s jaw.

“But you didn’t,” he says.

“No.” Steve shakes his head just slightly. “I thought you hated me.”

Did he? Bucky can’t imagine he did. He can’t imagine a world where he could bring himself to hate the person in front of him.

“Then the sirens went off,” Steve says. “There was the—explosion. The ash in the air. Everything—Jesus. People screaming, everything falling.”

Bucky watches Steve’s eyes, bright blue and glassy with a grief he will never be able to reach.

“And I thought, if I don’t get to see him before we both die, I’ll never forgive myself,” Steve says. “I thought...why am I here at the end of the world without my best friend?”

Bucky’s eyes close at that.

There’s something here that aches in him, a sliver in the center of his heart, his metal core, alive, pulsing and hurt. _Why am I here at the end of the world without my best friend?_ this Steve asks. His Steve must have asked. Azzano. The Alps. The Triskelion. Thanos. Steve’s world had ended over and over again and Bucky had missed it, each time.

It’s a question he understands: _why am I here at the end of the world without my best friend?_ because he has felt it too. Ground to dust after a snap. On a field torn by battle, aliens and Titans and a planet’s war. He feels it now, in a world so desolate it’s colored by lingering ashfall.

Bucky feels Steve press a gentle kiss to his forehead. He opens his eyes and Steve moves back.

“We’re here,” Bucky says. His voice is hoarse. “It’s the end of the world. And I can’t keep doing this without you.”

Steve looks watery, his eyes bright with emotion, the corners of his mouth quivering. His fingers dig into Bucky’s side.

“I’m afraid,” he says. “What if nothing has changed?”

Bucky smiles sadly and presses a thumb to Steve’s mouth.

“Everything has changed,” he says.

“What if we still don’t work?” Steve murmurs.

“What if we do?” Bucky asks.

Steve looks up at him and Bucky can hear his soft breathing, his breath picking up. His pulse is racing under Bucky’s metal thumb.

“How could you still love me?” Steve asks quietly. “After all of that?”

“Steve,” Bucky says with a gentle smile. “How could I not?”

Steve’s mouth opens, just slightly askew, his expression soft with surprise.

Bucky laughs, only a little, softly, with devotion—with years and universes of unapologetic, ceaseless devotion—and cupping Steve’s face, leans forward to gently press their mouths together.

  
Maybe nothing can really be salvaged, at the end of the world. But maybe everything can.

Bucky shifting Steve backwards, his fingers moving to the hem of Steve’s shirt. Steve, unwilling to break their kiss, unwilling to let him go. Steve’s fingers curled into Bucky’s hair, a hand pressed to Bucky’s neck. Bucky, his fingertips brushing Steve’s stomach, rucking up his shirt as he goes, a knee between Steve’s legs, their bodies pressed close together. The heat between them, their blood racing, chests pressed together, Steve panting into Bucky’s mouth or Bucky into his, their breaths intermingling.

Steve, his fingers carding through Bucky’s curls, kissing Bucky on the mouth, demanding until he slants sideways, his mouth moving up Bucky’s jaw, teeth scraping his skin, up and up to the hollow at the back of his ear, then down, down the side of Bucky’s throat until Bucky’s letting out little noises of his own, his breath scarce in his lungs, his fingers digging into the flesh of Steve’s sides.

Steve, laughing as he trails his mouth down, as he stops to suck at Bucky’s collarbone, suck a bruise into his skin, and then, unceremoniously, pulling back so he can take the bottom of Bucky’s shirt and shove it up and over his head and Bucky, so dizzy he doesn’t think twice about stopping him. And why would he? Steve, his mouth immediately attached to the nub of Bucky’s nipple, teasing it with his tongue, gripping it lightly between his teeth and tugging, until it’s a stiff peak and Bucky’s noises are louder and he’s growing so hard his brain begins to white out.

Steve, laughing again, his fingers trailing down to the top of Bucky’s jeans, flipping the top button and dragging down the zipper and pressing his hand to Bucky’s dick, hard under his palm.

“Want me to?” Steve murmurs and Bucky isn’t particularly good with words at the best of times, but especially not now. A soft chuckle in his ear and Steve’s fingers slipping under his waistband, a fist around him. It’s tight and it’s hot and Steve starts moving his fist, stroking him, and it’s clear he’s done this before, clear that he knows exactly what to do and how and for how long, has memorized Bucky perfectly.

Bucky, his face pressed into Steve’s shoulder now, skin hot and salty, and he takes the chance, sinks his teeth into Steve’s neck, remembers the feeling of fangs in skin, of warm blooding seeping into his mouth. The taste of Steve’s life in his mouth. His proof of life, his live, warm-blooded proof.

Steve hisses and his rhythm falters.

Steve breathlessly saying, “Do that again.”

Bucky biting him again and Steve groaning, Steve picking up the pace and Bucky groaning.

At some point, both of them moving together, in tune, some kind of rhythm between them, before Bucky feels himself coming close to a point he doesn’t want to cross just yet.

“Stop,” he says hoarsely. “Stop.”

“Buck—?” Steve, his pupils blown wide, looking at him in surprise, his hand immediately motionless.

“No,” Bucky says roughly and kisses him. Kisses his mouth once and then again and then a third time for good measure. “Do it right.”

Steve confused, and Bucky kissing him again, slower this time, with more heat, tongue running along the roof of Steve’s mouth.

Steve makes a soft sound and sucking on Bucky’s tongue.

“Fuck me,” Bucky manages to says, breathlessly.

Steve’s confusion melting away.

Steve, grinning into Bucky’s mouth.

Steve holding him there, holding him in place as he kisses him again, kisses him until Bucky’s eyes roll back into his head, Steve’s fingers around his length, more fingers bruising his collarbone.

“Okay,” Steve says after Bucky’s been well and truly kissed out of his senses. He withdraws his hand and shoves Bucky back onto his thighs. “Then turn around.”

  
What do they say about the end of the world? A lot, probably.

Bucky looks over at Steve, his eyes closed, his mouth open. Bucky’s skin is sweat-slick and his pulse is buzzing and he’s coming down from his high and has no thoughts.

For the first time in a hundred years, Bucky Barnes’s head is empty.

“Do you regret loving me?” he asks, quietly. It’s not good pillowtalk, but, in truth, they’ve never had good pillowtalk. Bed is where defenses come down, where they’ve never been afraid to be their truest, most fragile selves.

Steve takes in a deep breath and opens his eyes. He tilts his head just so and the moonlight catches him again, amber light along his sex-mussed golden hair and the curve of his once-broken nose, over his mouth and the tip of his chin and the top of his bare, heaving chest.

Moonlight over scars Bucky had traced with his mouth, scars he aches to touch again.

Bucky doesn’t know why he asks, at the same time knows exactly why he does. Bucky Barnes, wanting salvation. Bucky Barnes, wanting one last assurance, one last kiss against his mouth, a promise that if he says yes to Steve, he won’t be fucking anything up. That Steve wants this. That Steve could possibly want him.

“I regret letting you go,” Steve says. “Even though I was...right to, I regret all of the time without you.”

It’s so close to what he had said to Bucky—his own Steve, on a quinjet in the middle of Siberia.

“Am I worth all this?” Bucky asks, echoing himself, that past Bucky. He doesn’t clarify what he means. Maybe he doesn’t have to.

Steve laughs, low and tired. A good tired. He turns on his side, his long fingers pressed against Bucky’s face.

“None of this would be worth anything without you,” Steve says and kisses him again, softly.

  
“I found something for you,” Steve says, later.

Later, after they’ve actually slept. Later, after they’ve woken up, curled around each other, and slept together again.

Later, after they lay languidly in Bucky’s bed, sheets pulled up to their waists, Bucky’s fingers playing with Steve’s hair and Steve with a palm pressed to Bucky’s chest.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Steve says. “While I was hunting the other day. It was in the woods and it reminded me of you.”

Bucky gives Steve a questioning look and Steve presses a kiss to his nose before rolling over to the edge of the bed to dig through his pants for something.

“Is it a rock?” Bucky asks. “I’ve always wanted a pet rock.”

“It’s not a pet rock,” Steve says.

“Okay, but can it be?” Bucky says. “I think I’d be a great owner of a pet rock.”

“Bucky, shut up,” Steve calls over his shoulder, good naturedly.

Bucky grins.

“Okay, here,” Steve says and reemerges with something on a chain.

Something dangling, glinting on the end of a silver chain.

Bucky’s expression flickers.

“You found that...in the woods?”

“Well, not the necklace,” Steve says sheepishly. “Just the blue piece. I put it on the chain for you. I don’t know, it was glowing and looked beautiful in the moonlight and...it was so unusual, just sitting there.”

Bucky looks at the glowing, blue glass—the shard of the Tesseract that Steve had found and lovingly put on a chain for him.

“Too cheesy?” Steve asks, clearly embarrassed. “You can tell me if it’s stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking, we can just ignore—”

“Steve, no,” Bucky says and reaches for it, curls his fingers around Steve’s, which are clasped around the chain. “It’s beautiful. It reminded you of me?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. His mouth curves up at one corner. “It reminded me of your eyes.”

Bucky’s Tesseract-colored eyes. He would laugh, except it’s an act of kindness even when Steve had thought they would never be again; an act of love when he had thought love was in their past.

“It’s beautiful,” Bucky repeats and kisses him. “Thank you.”

“Can I put it on you?” Steve asks and Bucky nods.

Before Bucky turns, he stops Steve, a hand to his face. Steve looks at him questioningly.

Bucky, taking in this Steve. Bucky memorizing him—the light of his eyes and the curve of his nose and a mouth he had kissed. A Steve who had loved him. A Steve he had loved.

“I love you,” Bucky says softly and Steve’s face—it glows.

Bucky leans forward and kisses him, their mouths fit together, his thumb fit into the spot below Steve’s mouth. Steve’s eyes flutter closed and they stay that way for one beat, for two.

Bucky kisses Steve and Steve accepts that love for what it is: unconditional and never-ending.

  
The thing is, they’re all Steves who love him, and they’re all Steves he loves. Bucky will love him, no matter the world and no matter the Steve. But there is one that belongs to _him_. Not to another Bucky, but to him Bucky. A Steve he has known his entire life. A Steve he has died for. A Steve of his very own.

Bucky turns around and this Steve, on his knees behind him, strings the necklace around his throat. He presses a soft kiss to the top of Bucky’s hair.

  
Bucky takes a breath and closes his fingers around the blue shard.

 _Take me to my Steve,_ he thinks to the Tesseract.

 _I am ready for him now_ , he says, and a purple and blue haze starts to swirl around him.

**art:** Steve putting the necklace on Bucky, while kissing the crown of his head; **art by:** nalonzooo

**art:** Steve pressing a kiss to the crown of Bucky's head as Bucky glitches out of this reality; **art by:** nalonzooo

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BRAIN MALFUNCTIONING @ SOFT, HORNY ART
> 
> BE SURE TO LEAVE A BONK OR THREE FOR NIKKI


	19. Chapter Nineteen. [ the final oddity: endgame ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bucky—” Steve protests again and Bucky stops him. He’s had enough of this. Frankly, he’s had enough of _both_ of them. They are both so very stupid and it is now time for them to dust off the two brain cells they have collectively between them and finally use them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only the epilogue to go after this, so for all of your love and support and comments and excitement over this story--thank you. I have loved Bucky and Thor's adventure and I hope you have too. Now it's time for them to have one more adventure and then go home. ♥

The portal closes behind him, a black hole glowing purple and blue that shrinks and disappears with a slight pop as he steps out of it. Bucky feels a little unsteady on his feet, but his head feels clear and the interdimensional nausea doesn’t make his stomach churn this time.

He’s cautious as he takes a look around, unable to believe the Tesseract had just… _listened_ to him like that. But also not sure what he’ll do if it didn’t.

There’s a light breeze coming off the water as he turns his head, a rustle through trees that look strangely familiar.

Bucky shields his eyes against the sunlight and then, as he turns to get a better look, slowly freezes.

He _does_ know these trees. He knows the water too, and the little wooden platform that juts out onto it. There are no floral arrangements in the middle of the lake now, no electric heart taken from someone’s chest, but he knows it all the same.

His stomach _does_ hurt then, although it’s not because of the multiverse.

A handful of yards to his left, in a clearing set away from the water, is a circular platform of some kind and beside it, a contraption with a dozen different knobs.

It’s not difficult to recognize.

Bucky remembers the last time he had seen the device, the buttons and dials glowing bright as his own reality was sinking. There had been a pair of dim, disappointed blue eyes, a reassuring smile he hadn’t believed, a sweetly told lie, and then with a flash of bright, blinding light—

Steve had disappeared.

Was he just back to where he had started, with nothing to show for his travels? Or was he in another universe altogether, one that looked just like his and acted just like his, but was, once more, some other Bucky’s?

Thor isn’t anywhere around him. It’s only Bucky and Stark’s time traveling machine—here again, where it had all begun—only this time, there’s no one on the platform. This time, he’s all alone.

Bucky can’t fucking do this anymore. He can’t keep going from universe to universe, falling through space and time only to wake up and be a different version of himself, find a different version of Steve, live a different version of his life. He’s starting to splinter at the edges, his conscious fraying, the ground cracking beneath his feet.

Bucky’s so tired. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and tries not to spiral.

This is starting to feel hopeless.

He’s never going to find his way back home.

He’s trying to suck in a deep, calming breath when the breeze shifts again. This time, he hears something by the water.

Bucky looks up, trying to find the source of the noise, and that’s when he sees it—a slight shape just beyond a bench set by the water. Someone crouching at the water’s edge.

“Thor?” Bucky mutters and pulls his hands away.

The treetop rustles as he crosses the green toward the lake, branches swaying over the heavy wooden bench.

“Thor?” Bucky calls out softly, but his voice is smothered by the sound of the breeze.

He pauses as he reaches the bench, his fingertips grazing the wooden arm as his eyebrows knit together.

There is someone crouching by the lake, but it can’t be Thor. This person’s shoulders aren’t wide enough and neither is his back. Nothing about him is broad enough to be the Norse god. But his hair isn’t dark either, that now-familiar inky black hair framing a narrow face with vibrant green eyes that Bucky’s somehow gotten to know.

No, the sun shifts from behind a cloud and Bucky’s breathing slows in his chest. It’s the familiar golden glint, a delicate, narrow frame that he hasn’t seen in a hundred years.

“Steve?” Bucky says softly.

His voice doesn’t carry well enough, so he lets go of the bench and treads down the slight slope, crossing the grass to the water, and when he finally gets there, when he’s finally beside him, Steve tilts his head up and looks at him with guarded surprise.

“Bucky?” Steve says.

Steve, with his bird-like frame, his cornflower blond hair a little longer than it had been in the 40s, but still messy, bangs still falling into his face. Steve, with his bright, clear blue eyes and the little notch in his nose from when he got into a fucking brawl with Lee MacMillan in the shipyard because Lee had started a nasty rumor about Bucky and Steve had found out. Steve, with his curved pink mouth and his long neck and his long, artists fingers; Steve with eyelashes so long they seem to dust the top of his delicate, sharp cheekbones.

He’s not wearing a cream colored shirt and suspenders, but Bucky’s mind puts him in it anyway, his cheeks flushed from the cold or from long hours at Harry’s, baking bread for a pittance, wearing a shirt two sizes too big and suspenders that fit him just right and black shoes that he had saved a whole year to be able to afford.

It’s like someone’s finally found him, just gone back in time and found his Steve, plucked him out of his story, and brought him back here—back to Bucky, Bucky’s past and his future—by a lake Bucky had foolishly said goodbye at.

“Which Bucky are you?” Steve says, his voice cautious.

Bucky almost doesn’t hear him, he’s so distracted by this—by the vision of him, by the memory, by _him_ —but then he hears it. He pauses, confused.

“What?”

Steve gives him a look that Bucky can barely identify—a muddled cross between wary caution and hope and something else that makes Bucky’s heart flicker near his throat.

“Forget it,” Steve says with a sigh and then shifts back from his knees, which must be aching, and sits down on the grass. “I’ll never find him.”

Bucky wonders who he’s lost.

“Can I sit next to you?” he asks.

Steve nods and draws his knees up to his chest.

“You can always sit next to me, Buck.”

Bucky takes a seat on the grass, a foot of space between them.

They don’t talk for a few minutes, just watching the water. There are ripples breaking across the top, the wind creating small, gentle tides that slosh away fallen leaves and stray flower petals, but don’t disturb the few ducks grazing quietly at the corner.

There’s a tree above them that reaches forward over the water, casting the two of them half in its shade and the ducks in the other half. A leaf falls as the wind rustles the branches again and Bucky watches it float gently to the top of the water.

“Who are you looking for?” Bucky asks.

Steve rests his chin on his knees and doesn’t look away from the lake.

“You,” he says.

“But I’m right here,” Bucky replies.

Bucky watches the corner of Steve’s mouth quirk up, but his eyebrows stay knit close together. His shoulders are both rigid and somewhat slumped. Steve, pulled into himself, trying to hold himself together. Steve lost, and waiting to be found.

“Are you ever here?” Steve asks.

Bucky frowns.

“I always think you are. I always hope you are. But even when you’re next to me, you’re somewhere far away.”

Bucky knows that this isn’t his Steve, but that hurts him anyway. Maybe because he’s never expected Steve to notice. Maybe because it’s true.

“Steve, I’m right here,” he repeats now. Hesitantly, he reaches forward and presses a palm to his shoulder. “Can’t you feel me?”

Steve takes in a breath that Bucky can hear. He can hear the rattle in his chest, not in a sick way, but in a shaky one. Steve, nervous. Steve, sad.

“It’s not that simple,” Steve says.

“Okay,” Bucky says. He lets him go. “Explain it to me anyway.”

Steve pauses, running his tongue over his dry lips.

“I just want to find you,” he says. “Wherever you are. I want to find my way back to you.”

“Did you go somewhere?” Bucky asks gently.

“Yeah,” Steve says, quietly. “I made a mistake.”

Bucky doesn’t understand.

“What mistake?”

Steve is reluctant to say, so Bucky reaches a hand forward again, presses his fingers against Steve’s arm.

“What mistake, Steve?”

Steve sighs at that, frustrated and stubborn, but ultimately defeated. Maybe just too tired. His shoulders slump. He rubs his face with both of his hands.

“I gave up too quickly,” he says. “I shouldn’t have taken no for an answer.”

“Gave what up? An answer for what?”

Steve doesn’t reply. He looks at his hands, curls his fingers into his palms and unfolds them again.

“Will you talk to me?” Bucky asks and this time his voice takes on an edge. Steve fucking Rogers and his inability to process a single fucking emotion. Steve fucking Rogers and the impossibility of being straightforward. Steve fucking Rogers and his—

Steve’s expression grows stormy.

“Why?” he demands. “You never talked to me.”

A beat.

“What?” Bucky says, mouth open in surprise.

“I tried so hard,” Steve says and draws his knees closer to his chest. Glaring at the water. “After everything. I thought if I gave you space, then you would come to me when you were ready. But you were never ready, Buck.”

Bucky withdraws his hand guiltily and it’s that movement that jars Steve.

Steve looks at him and Bucky feels shock run down his spine. Steve Rogers is not easy to make cry and he isn’t, even now, not _fully_ , but his face is pink and his eyes are blurry, furious.

“What else could I have done?” Steve asks. “To make you love me?”

Bucky feels it like a punch to his gut. He swallows, his throat burning.

“Steve, that’s not—”

“I know you’re not him,” Steve says, furiously. Then a little guiltily. “I know my Bucky is in some other world I can’t find my way back to. But you’re a Bucky, so maybe you have the answer.”

“Steve, it’s not that I didn’t—” Bucky starts and then slows to a halt.

“I just need to know, Bucky,” Steve says, his eyes burning. “If I’m stuck here forever, then I at least deserve to know what I did wrong over there.”

Steve is still looking at him, on the border between anger and hurt, a place he has lived for a long time now.

Bucky’s eyes widen.

“What did you say?”

“Don’t play stupid. I want to know what I did wrong,” Steve says. This time he sounds bitter. He almost lets his hurt filter through.

Steve breathes out through his nose.

“I want to know why you didn’t choose me.”

“Oh,” Bucky says. And then softer, “ _Oh._ ”

“Whatever,” Steve says, angrily. “Forget it.”

He rubs at his eyes and then starts to shove himself up, but Bucky’s flesh hand darts out and he grabs his wrist.

“Steve, stop,” he says.

“Let me go, Bucky,” Steve says.

“Steve, _listen_ to me—”

“Just let me go!”

Bucky doesn’t. Not this time.

“I said—”

Instead, Bucky uses his strength to haul Steve closer, to pull against Steve’s stubbornness and restraint until Steve’s stumbling forward, until he trips over Bucky’s feet with a sharp curse, and the two of them end up sprawled on the grass together, Bucky falling hard onto his back and catching Steve before their faces thunk together, his metal arm around his small waist.

“ _What the fuck_ Bucky, what are you—” Steve glares at him, but Bucky doesn’t let him go.

Bucky starts to smile.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” he says.

“What?”

“You said your Bucky is in a world you can’t get back to. What did you mean by that?”

Steve lets out an aggrieved sigh. His knees are to either side of Bucky’s hips, his hands braced on Bucky’s broad chest. He tries to shove himself up, but Bucky’s iron grip is relentless around his back.

Steve lets out a frustrated growl.

“I did something stupid, okay?”

“What kind of stupid thing?”

Steve glares. “Why?”

“Because Steve, you saying you’ve done something stupid does not actually clarify the situation for me,” Bucky says. He’s trying not to smile, but he can’t quite keep it off his face.

Steve’s glare intensifies.

“Given you are in the habit of always doing something stupid.”

“You’re so _fucking_ annoying,” Steve says, with a medium amount of heat. He sighs. “ _Fine._ I did a lot of things stupid, compounded by a lot of _other_ stupid things, and most of it was Loki’s fault, but I guess the first thing was pretty stupid in and of itself and now here I fucking am, facing the consequences of my stupid actions.”

Bucky’s torn between rolling his eyes and grinning. He settles for a pained look of fond exasperation.

“Stupid actions like...letting Loki break the Tesseract?”

“I didn’t _let him_ ,” Steve snaps. “Why do you _always_ think I’m the one causing—trouble—”

Steve pulls up short as he presumably finally hears what Bucky’s said. “Wait, how did you—”

Bucky’s smile widens.

“First of all, you’re always causing trouble.”

“Am not,” Steve grumbles.

“ _Second_ of all, I’m always right.”

“Like _hell_ you are,” Steve says loudly.

“ _Third_ of all.” Bucky pauses. Steve glares down at him, face flushed pink from irritation, waiting for the shoe to drop. And what a fucking shoe it is. Bucky’s grinning. “Third of all, you let Loki break the fucking Tesseract and then you got pitched into the fucking multiverse, didn’t you?”

“I _said_ I didn’t let him, he was the one who—” Steve, always one to argue first and then think later, argues—but then, once again, processes what’s been said. A beat too late. As usual. “Wait.”

“Steve, you’re _tiny_.” Bucky starts to laugh.

Steve, who in a previous life would have pummeled Bucky for saying such a thing, just stares at him now, his eyes widening. Bucky can almost see the wheels turning in his dumb, meathead brain, the brain synapses, long rusted over, sparking to life. He looks so fucking dumb. Goofy in his shock. It’s so fucking delightful and Bucky is so fucking _relieved_ , he can’t stop laughing.

Slowly, second by second, Steve’s features come to life—his eyebrows raising, his shoulders losing their tension. His eyes, brightening. His mouth, curving up.

“Buck?” he says. “Like. _My_ Bucky?”

“You mean the one you _left behind_ , you fucking asshole?” Bucky says, face splitting into a grin.

“I didn’t _leave you behind_ , I _went on a mission_ and got...sidetracked!” Steve says, but he’s grinning now too.

“Sidetracked my _ass_ ,” Bucky manages a half-assed glare with zero to no heat.

“I _wish_ your ass had been involved,” Steve laughs.

His hands are up at Bucky’s face now, touching him all over, his long fingers at Bucky’s jaw and curving around his cheeks and in his hair and touching his nose and his mouth. Steve’s face is so bright, so fucking delighted, Bucky can nearly feel his shock—his unchecked joy. Bucky doesn’t even need to feel Steve’s, he’s being taken apart by his own.

“Bucky, what the fuck,” Steve says, his voice tight with emotion. “Why are you here?”

“Why am I ever anywhere, Rogers?” Bucky says. “You went and made a goddamned mess and I had to clean up after you. As _usual_.”

Steve touches Bucky’s mouth.

“You came after me?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I let you go and that’s on me. But then I realized something.”

Steve, staring at Bucky’s mouth, looks back up at his eyes.

“What?”

“You’re a pain in my ass,” Bucky says. “But I like having things in my ass.”

“Bucky!” Steve splutters, turning red and Bucky lets out an ugly bark of laughter.

“Kidding. Sort of,” he says with a grin. He shifts his hand up, touches Steve’s jaw. “I realized I’m stupid without you. And you’re stupid without me. And there isn’t a single other person in the entire fucking multiverse who is equipped to put up with either of us.”

The pink of Steve’s skin recedes and then he’s looking down at Bucky, a little goofily.

“What’re you saying, Barnes?”

That makes Bucky’s smile soften. Steve, with his warm body pressed against Bucky’s, his soft blond hair brushing against Bucky’s forehead. Steve, with his deep blue eyes, light with hope—unguarded hope this time, just fully vulnerable, shining hope—and his soft mouth, curved up at the corners, his fingertips still pressed to Bucky’s lips.

Steve, who has been with Bucky his entire life. Who has been waiting for Bucky, their entire lives.

Steve, around whom Bucky’s world spins; his sun; his central axis.

Steve, who Bucky has found and loved not only in his universe, but in all of the universes out there, all of the universes they have both ever existed in.

Once, Steve had pressed his knuckles to Bucky’s mouth and wordlessly asked him if he was ready to give them a chance. Bucky had been stupid then. He had been scared; a coward. He had been so afraid of fucking everything up, of not being worthy of Steve, that he hadn’t realized that Steve had never been waiting for him to be worthy.

He had just been waiting for him.

“I’m saying you should have let me come with you to take the motherfucking stones back and then maybe Loki wouldn’t have done the stupid thing,” Bucky says.

Steve gives him an unimpressed look and Bucky laughs lightly. He presses his flesh palm to Steve’s face, his rough fingertips at his sharp jaw.

“I’m saying I was afraid,” Bucky says softly. “I fucked up. And I’m sorry. I thought I didn’t deserve this. That I wasn’t worthy of—you.”

“Because of Captain America?” Steve asks, equally softly.

“No, fuck that guy,” Bucky says with a smile. “Of you, of Steve. I thought I could never earn you. Thought I’d lost that right a long time ago.”

“Oh, Buck,” Steve sighs. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Bucky mock glares at him. It is utterly without any heat.

Steve shakes his head and touches his face.

“You’ve always been worthy.”

“I know that now, jackass,” Bucky says.

Steve smiles.

“It took you this long to realize?”

“I literally said I was stupid,” Bucky says. “Just now. You were there for it.”

Steve laughs and Bucky loves that. He loves the way his eyes crinkle at the corners as he does so. He loves the way it feels against his own sternum, the vibrations sinking through his own skin.

He loves being able to admit it to himself.

He loves Steve.

He is _in love_ with Steve.

“It’s always been you, Steve,” Bucky says, his voice soft, his expression soft. His fingers pressed against Steve’s mouth. “In every universe. In every timeline. It’s always been you.”

“Well I know that, dumbass.” Steve smiles at him. “I was waiting for you to catch up.”

 _Oh,_ Bucky thinks.

“So, have you?” Steve asks, looking down at him. His blue eyes seem glossy, his mouth curved up sharply at the corners. He’s smirking, the rat bastard. But his expression is soft, and his touch, at Bucky’s jaw, even softer. “Caught up?”

“You know what?” Bucky says, the corner of his mouth tilting up. “I’m getting there.”

Steve watches him closely. “What’s taking you so long?”

There isn’t time enough, in any reality, in the entirety of the multiverse, to answer that.

So instead, Bucky does what he should have done all the way back then. Before broken Tesseracts and alternate realities and fickle multiverses. This time, he doesn’t let Steve go. He does, in fact, the opposite.

Heart ticking loudly near his ears, chest squeezing tight, Bucky slides his fingers into Steve’s soft hair and pulls him closer to finally kiss him.

  
It’s taken a kaleidoscope of multiverse realities to come to this realization; a Tesseract-fueled Rubik’s cube of shifting universes and every iteration of them Bucky could possibly imagine. He had gone through hell and somehow survived, died and come back from space dust, been a hundred different Buckys and still, somehow, circled a hundred different Steves.

Some might call that a coincidence, but Bucky now knows it for what it is.

Inescapable, and.

Perhaps, inevitable.

  
They kiss sweetly and they kiss slowly, Bucky’s fingers wound in Steve’s hair and Steve’s large palms pressed, one against Bucky’s jaw and the other to his chest. They laugh in between kisses, their breaths intermingling, eyes crinkling at the corners. Steve teases Bucky for taking so goddamned long to figure out what everyone with two—and sometimes one—eyeballs could see and Bucky gripes that Steve is a pain in his ass in every single fucking parallel universe and how was _he_ supposed to know that unbearable, irritating asshole was actually his type?

They roll over a few times, Bucky pinning Steve to the grass, hovering over Steve, kissing him until the breath is knocked out of both of them, and then Steve shoving him over so that he can straddle him in the grass and Bucky making some off-color joke about grass stains on Steve’s knees that makes Steve bite down on his collarbone.

“Why are you _laughing_?” Steve gripes when Bucky cannot get a hold of himself.

“I can’t believe _you_ were the torn, jaded vampire hunter and I was the slutty vampire,” Bucky says, between fits of laughter and Steve’s nails scraping his skull.

“Yeah, what the fuck,” Steve complains. “I want to be a slutty vampire.”

That makes Bucky’s eyes widen and Steve grin wickedly and then he smacks a kiss onto Bucky’s chin and they roll over again, bickering and grappling with each other, while also, somehow, still managing to kiss.

It’s a fizzy, heady, effervescent thing—Steve above him, his cheeks splotched pink and his fine, blond hair curling into his face; Bucky, looking up at him disbelievingly (adoringly), his lips curved up and his chest light, as Steve bends to kiss him again and again.

Steve’s pulse, strong and quick against Bucky’s fingertips; Bucky’s mouth kissing up Steve’s smooth jaw, teasing the hollow under his ear, then kissing back down his throat, just to hear his breath hitch.

The two of them that day, on a day that looks and feels exactly like another day—a different day, one or three or five lifetimes ago—when Steve had waited for Bucky to stop him and Bucky, too afraid, had let him go.

Bucky isn’t afraid this time.

He tightens his grip around Steve’s waist and as Steve slides his fingers into Bucky’s hair and Bucky tilts his face up to fit their mouths together again, Bucky thinks: he has no intention of letting him go ever again.

*

Thor leans in to press a palm against Loki’s jaw when the air starts to spark around them. Loki’s green eyes glow in the purple glow, the blue haze rippling in between them.

Oh, Thor thinks.

He’s sad, as he often is—to leave a universe where Loki is a sure thing, to go somewhere new, somewhere else unknown, where Thor can only hope he will have someone waiting for him.

He has never minded adventure, but he now craves stability. Thor has lost one thing after another so rapidly, it’s as though he has been on a ship shredding against crashing waves. He has held onto the railing, but everyone else has fallen into the water. Thor’s knuckles turn white as he looks at the churning, roiling water, and he reaches out to save anyone—a single person—but there is no one left to reach back for him.

His fingers pass through Loki’s face, this Loki fading from existence as Thor is catapulted into yet another universe.

His stomach twists and his head aches and when the purple and blue haze swallows him, Thor closes his eyes and waits for it to be over.

  
There’s a breeze licking at his skin. It’s soft and cool, sliding through his hair like fingertips ruffling the ends. There’s the hint of salt in the air, the familiar sound of water sloshing against rocks. Thor has spent a lot of time here, at cliff’s edge, looking out at the endless sea.

He inhales the salty brine and opens his eyes. Seagulls wheel through the air, the water in front of him and New Asgard somewhere behind.

The last time he had been here, he had said goodbye to her: the sea and his people. They had rebuilt themselves from the barely smoldering ashes of what Hela and Thanos had done and although Thor had been here with them, he hadn’t helped. In a way, when Thor had given his crown to Valkyrie, it hadn’t been cowardice. Valkyrie had stayed with his people. Valkyrie had helped them begin anew. Thor, as devastated and depressed as he was, could not bear to do either. So what right did he have to a place he had not helped build?

Thor turns his back to the water now and turns to look at her—the small village of colorful thatched roofs and roads of stone winding in between. The entirety of Asgard fits here now; once a glittering, sprawling, proud empire and now, just here, a handful of homes in a town the size of a village, ambition replaced by the simple will to survive. Is it fate or is it a lesson, Thor wonders? Asgard had been the bulwark against many evils, but then, it had also been that evil too. He wonders what Jotunheim would have been if Odin hadn’t stolen the Casket. He wonders what many realms would have done, without the threat of war.

Well, like most things, looking back is much easier than looking forward. Thor’s past and Asgard’s past is littered with mistakes that they can only understand now.

Still, rebuilding is hard and most of the people remaining hadn’t done anything to harm anyone else in any other realm. They had benefited from empire, but that is the truth for anyone living in such a kingdom, ruled by such a king.

Thor thinks, maybe he would have been a different ruler than Odin. Maybe he would have been a better one. Thor thinks, it doesn’t matter anymore now anyway.

Odin is gone and Valkyrie is their King—or Queen. Whatever it is that Valkyrie wishes to be.

Thor is simply an old, washed out would-be king, a king of such short rule, the candle flame had been extinguished mere moments after it had been lit. He touches his eyepatch and presses a hand to his soft, large belly. He is back to where he began, but this time he thinks he understands it all a little better.

Asgard does not exist in every reality, but he does. And Loki does. So maybe what Thor has always needed was to distinguish himself from his crown; maybe what he has needed was to be who he is to other people without it.

He walks the path away from the cliff, thinking he’ll look for Valkyrie. He will say hello to her and ask her how Asgard has been. He will ask if she would like to get dinner and instead of ale, he will drink water. They will talk and this time, Thor will listen.

  
He doesn’t make it that far. There’s a bench near one of the curves along the cliff and Thor is just passing it from a dozen yards away when his entire body suddenly comes alive—all of him sparking, his awareness sharpening, his fingers and toes on pins and needles.

He stops in his tracks.

Thor’s eyes widen and his heart ticks up near the back of his throat. He turns his head toward the bench.

There is someone there.

He sees the outline of a green cape, with gold glinting at the shoulders. He sees long, black hair, caught in the breeze.

Thor feels unsteady on his feet, but he does not stay unsteady long.

He pivots toward the cliff and makes his way back to his brother.

  
They say nothing for some time. It’s not really that Thor doesn’t want to crush Loki to him or that he has gained any sort of self control in between falling through magical space gravel and ending up back in New Asgard. It’s more that he doesn’t know where to begin.

Loki is the one to break the silence.

“Do you know how stupid it is,” he says, “that all I have ever wanted was to be seen as your equal, when apparently you have never known your own worth?”

Thor...doesn’t know what to say to that. He gapes at his brother, mouth hanging askew.

“Who was I competing against all of these years, then?” Loki asks. “I thought it was you. The golden, shining, arrogant, _unbearable_ version of you. My first friend. My archnemesis. I would have given up long ago, but I simply just had to catch you. And now.”

Thor takes a breath and tries to unwind the tension hanging tight in his chest.

“And now you see me as I am, lost and useless?” he tries to joke.

“Stupid,” Loki says, frustrated. “What is the point of you if you are not something for me to beat?”

“Is that all I ever was to you, Loki?” Thor asks. “Someone to best?”

“Yes,” Loki says. Then he makes a face and lets out an agitated breath. “And no. We were friends, once.”

“We were brothers once too,” Thor says.

Loki’s mouth quirks up in the bare hint of a smile.

“Were we? That seems ages ago,” he says. “We have not been brothers for a very long time.”

“No,” Thor muses out loud. “I suppose not.”

Loki sighs, his stormy green eyes staring out into the sea.

“Although,” Thor says, with a grin. “I believe those were my last words to you.”

Loki tilts his head at him curiously.

“I said, _you really are the worst brother_ ,” Thor says. This time it’s with a laugh. It’s no laughing matter, because the seconds after are so full of trauma, they will take multiple lifetimes to unpack. But still, Loki is here next to him now and it feels _good_ to just think back on that and—laugh.

“Are you serious?” Loki asks, sounding slightly furious. “I was _dying_ and all you had to say to me was that I was the worst?”

“Well, you were,” Thor says, still laughing. “You had the Norns-damned Tesseract on you the entire Norns-damned time and you said nothing! And that was what Thanos was looking for! You absolute, Norns-damned fool.”

Loki scratches his nose and has the wherewithal to look abashed.

“Well, I suppose that was not my finest hour,” he says. Then he adds, “I’m not him, by the way. The Loki who died. That is another version of me.”

“Oh, I figured,” Thor says and now his smile flickers. His chest aches, in a way. “There was only one of him and he is lost to me forever.”

Loki makes a small noise and nods. In front of them, the tide picks up, coming in stronger against the rocks.

“So which one are you?” Thor asks. “I feel as though I have met a hundred different Lokis in the past—actually I have no idea how long it’s been.”

“Have you?” Loki asks and his mouth is twitching again. “Which one did you like best?”

“Oh, they each had their own merit,” Thor says breezily.

“Don’t be coy, brother,” Loki says. “I want a definitive answer. Of the hundred different Lokis you have met, which one was your favorite?”

“My one,” Thor says quietly, but Loki just waves that off.

“Yes, I know, that’s all very sentimental and your heart is broken and you’d like to cast your body into the ocean to get him back, etcetera etcetera. Please, I’m bored. Tell me.”

“You’re such a little ogre,” Thor grumbles, but something loosens in his chest. Maybe this isn’t _his_ Loki in the strict sense, but it’s still his Loki in every other sense. For example, no other person in the universe(s) could be quite as grating.

Loki’s grin brightens and Thor feels something else instead, something in his stomach this time. Midgardians call them butterflies.

“I quite liked the version of you that was a Midgardian nurse,” he says.

“A nurse?” Loki says, making a face. “Really?”

“Aye,” Thor says. “I don’t know, there was something about him—you. Maybe it was your competence.” He gives his brother a wry smile. “Maybe it was just that you were using your intelligence for good, instead of for disaster.”

“How boring,” Loki drawls.

“You were anything but boring, I assure you,” Thor says, his eyes flashing with amusement. “I believe you tried to seduce me at least once.”

“Well,” Loki says with a half-grin. “Did it work?”

“Almost,” Thor says. Loki looks disgruntled at that and Thor laughs lightly. “There was another version too.”

“Which one?” Loki asks.

Sometimes, when his brother looks at him like this—unguarded, full of curiosity and nothing else—he looks so young that Thor aches with it. Once, Loki was all innocence. The world had taken that from him in its own way and he had ruined it for himself in other ways. Still, sometimes, Loki looks as though he could be that young prince again—full of mischief and good humor and hope for something better. Something fun.

“You were a Jotun prince,” Thor says softly, looking at him. “And I was heir to the Aesir throne. And we were to be married.”

Loki...looks at him cautiously at that. It is not with any sort of disgust or loathing. He looks at Thor as though Thor has guessed some sort of secret he has tried to keep guarded.

“Do you think…” he starts and Thor thinks he understands what he means to say.

“I don’t know that Odin took you for that purpose,” Thor says. “Although it would make more sense than whatever he ended up doing.”

It would have been just like his father to steal a Jotun child for the purpose of quelling the constant wars between the two kingdoms through marriage and then somehow fuck all of that up.

“Odin,” Loki scowls and then sighs. “My other version—the one that died. Was he ever able to make him love him?”

Thor hurts at that. It’s not his burden to bear, but it will never not be a weight that he does not carry. He wishes a lot of things could have been different about the three of them—about Odin and his two sons. But then again, Odin had hidden a murderous Hel-bent sister from them, so perhaps it was always going to end up this way. Perhaps Odin had done the best he could and his best had also not been enough. Perhaps that is the burden they were both meant to carry.

“Yes,” Thor says, softly. “Odin loved you, even at the end.”

Loki doesn’t look as though he believes him, but he’s satisfied enough at the answer.

“I’ve also met a hundred different Thors now, by the way,” Loki says.

Thor looks at him questioningly.

“I am the Loki from 2012, to answer your previous question,” Loki says. “I had hold of the Tesseract when Captain Rogers came out of nowhere and wrestled me to the ground. It was not a fair fight, given _someone_ had bound and gagged me—”

Thor grins a little, guiltily.

“But something happened in the fight and then—we were elsewhere. The two of us as ourselves, but a very different version of ourselves.” Loki frowns a little. “It was very strange. We kept coming across pieces of the Tesseract and they would send us to a new reality and everything would change except that—”

“We were there,” Thor says. “Myself and Bucky Barnes.”

Loki looks at him, startled.

“Yes,” he says. “How did you know that?”

“Oh you know,” Thor says, a smile at the corners of his mouth. “A lucky guess.”

“Uh huh,” Loki says, eyeing him suspiciously. Then he shrugs. “I couldn’t figure out why. Why were you wherever I went? Why couldn’t you leave me alone? I had spent so many centuries of my life wanting your attention and then I _could not_ get rid of it!”

Thor chuckles a little.

“I’m sorry, brother,” he says.

“For following me everywhere?” Loki says, wrinkling his nose.

“No,” Thor says with a smile. “For letting you be alone. All of those years. It could not have been easy.”

Loki makes another face and then sighs.

“No, it wasn’t,” he says. “But I suppose it wasn’t easy the other way around either. For you. All of that...pressure. To be Odin, when you weren’t him.”

“Do you ever think,” Thor muses out loud. “That we were never in competition with one another?”

Loki turns to him, giving him a curious look.

“Maybe it was always him,” Thor says. “Perhaps he was our greatest obstacle.”

Loki scoffs, but his shoulders go down. Thor thinks, he’s letting his tension go as well.

“Yes, well, it would be just like him, wouldn’t it?”

“Aye,” Thor says.

They fall into another silence, although it’s more comfortable this time. This is a familiar Loki, but a new one, in a way. And this is a familiar Thor, but one who has been reforged—broken and rebuilt, like Stormbreaker from the heart of a dying star. What they have between them feels tentative, but it also feels new. Maybe that is all they have ever needed: a new beginning.

“So what is with your makeover?” Loki asks. “The Thor I knew would have died before gaining a gut.”

Thor smiles, running a hand through his unwieldy beard and patting his soft stomach.

“You don’t like it?” he says. “It’s kind of comfortable, actually.”

Loki looks askance at him, giving him a wry look.

“I don’t hate it,” he says. “Maybe I will get all the attention now.”

“Maybe I will give you all the attention,” Thor says.

It’s a bold thing to say, here, on new grounds, with someone he has to rebuild an entire life with. But Thor has now been through many different realities and in each, he has learned and known one truth: that without Loki, there is no point to this. He can lose Asgard and he can lose his throne, but he cannot again lose his brother.

“You are unbearable,” Loki says, although he’s turning a pretty pink.

Thor can’t help but grin.

“Whatever,” Loki says. “What about this?”

“What about what?” Thor asks.

Loki gestures at the sea in front of them and New Asgard to their side.

“ _This_ , Thor. New Asgard. Our people. What about _this_?”

Thor hesitates. He has divorced himself from this: Thor from Asgard, Thor from the crown. He understands, now, that it is not a question of worth in any literal sense, but there is still the metaphorical. Maybe no one can be worthy of a people. But that does not mean Thor would not like to try.

“There is a reason she chose you,” Loki says. “Mjolnir.”

“You could have—” Thor starts, but Loki cuts him off.

“No,” he says. “I could not have. She was never mine to have. She was always yours.”

Thor’s heart is beating rapidly in his chest. His head feels a little light, the wind whistling in his ears, the cloudy uncertainty of confusion.

“Thor,” Loki says.

Thor doesn’t want to turn to him. He doesn’t want to face this, the thing he has been running from all this while: the truth.

It is one thing to hear it from Nebula, or from Carol Danvers, or even from Bucky Barnes. It is another thing to hear it from the person who has known you the longest, the person you have always loved the most. When that kind of truth comes from that kind of person, it is not only terrifying, it is nearly unbearable.

But if Thor is stubborn, Loki is the only person who knows how to knock down his walls.

“Look at me, Thor,” Loki, his fingers on Thor’s face, commands.

Thor, reluctant. Loki, using force to turn his face toward him.

Loki, his green eyes unrelenting.

Loki, understanding.

“You are the rightful king of Asgard,” his brother says. “Not me. Not Valkyrie. You.”

Thor, taking a breath.

“You are worthy,” Loki says to Thor. “Say it to me.”

Thor, looking into those familiar green eyes.

Loki, his fingers digging into Thor’s jaw.

Loki, leaving no room for argument.

Maybe this is what Thor has always needed: someone to leave no room for argument.

The pressure of Loki’s fingers are relentless; his expression hard. He is flint, he is steel. Thor softens under that. How could he not? Loki will not allow otherwise.

“Thor,” his brother says.

And it is enough. He, Thor, is enough.

“I am worthy,” Thor murmurs.

Behind Loki, the sea rolls gently against the shore. There is a seagull wheeling through the sky. Between them, a lifetime of misunderstandings and the sea salt air.

Slowly, ever so slowly, his brother’s mouth curves up in a smile.

And then, in a clear, firm voice—one that commands, one that will not yield—Loki says to Thor:

“Then wear your crown with your head held high.”

*

“So what happened to you?” Bucky asks.

Bucky had eventually—reluctantly—let go of Steve and Steve had rolled off of him, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, and offered a hand to pull him up.

They sit next to each other now, by the water’s edge, no space left to separate them this time.

“Oh, you know,” Steve says. “Grappled with Loki, broke the Tesseract, fell through a dozen different multiverses—you were a cowboy in one by the way, very hot—woke up here and was given a choice.”

Bucky has his knees pulled up, his arms folded across the top.

“A choice,” he says. “What choice?”

Steve doesn’t reply at first and Bucky, this time, lets him be. After a minute of picking at the grass, Steve leans his shoulder against Bucky’s own.

“No one ever expects Captain America to be lost, you know that?”

Bucky says nothing, but bumps Steve’s shoulder back.

“He’s all—unshakeable certainty, a solid wall when everyone needs him the most.”

Bucky can’t disagree. He knows how people look at Steve when he’s in the uniform; his teammates, the public, hell, even his enemies look to him and expect nothing less than a humorless tone and a precisely aimed shield. The expectations on Steve are astronomical. The projection is even worse.

“And that’s fine for that guy,” Steve says, “but Steve Rogers is a different story.”

“Okay,” Bucky says. “So what’s his story?”

Steve’s mouth crooks up at the corner.

“Steve Rogers is...tired,” he says. “He’s been throwing a shield and fighting for the greater good for so long, he hasn’t had time to do anything else.” A pause. “Be anyone else.”

Bucky nods.

“So what does he want to do?” A nudge of his shoulder against Steve’s. “Who does he want to be?”

A moment of quiet as Steve runs a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know,” he says, slowly. “Sometimes I think I want to rest...just put down the shield, give it to someone else, and go away somewhere for a while. Somewhere where no one will ask anything of me. Somewhere...no one will look at me and expect me to save them.”

Bucky’s chest hurts.

“And other times?” he asks.

Steve shrugs.

That’s not an answer, so Bucky nudges him again lightly.

Steve sighs reluctantly.

“I don’t know if I’ve earned any of that.”

For fuck’s sake.

“Steve,” Bucky says.

Steve turns his head to look at him.

“That is the stupidest fucking thing I have literally ever heard.”

Steve’s expression flickers in surprise.

“No, I’m serious. I literally fell through fifteen different multiverses with Thor fucking Odinson _and_ I’ve been on five different missions with Scott Lang _and_ I have heard the words that have come out of Clint Barton’s mouth on a daily basis and that is _still_ the _stupidest_ thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“Hey—” Steve starts, slightly indignant, but Bucky cuts him off.

“No, _you_ listen to _me_ ,” Bucky glowers at his best friend. “I didn’t fall through twenty seven goddamned fucking realities chasing you to listen to you say stupid shit like that. Of all the fucking nerve! Do you know your problem, Rogers?”

“My taste in men?” Steve asks, annoyed.

“No,” Bucky says, flashing him a quick grin and then glaring at him again. “Your _problem_ is that you have a hero complex the size of a fucking asteroid and an inability to say no when someone looks at you with pleading eyes. Both of those would be lethal enough for someone with your astonishing lack of self preservation, but it’s worse than that. Do you know why it’s worse than that, you stupid, fucking, goddamned punk?”

Steve glares at him, crossing his arms across his chest, like the stupid, fucking, goddamned punk he is.

“It’s worse than that because you also _don’t know how to ask for what you want_. And trust me, I’m a fucking expert on self sabotage and self denial owing to seventy fucking years of mental torture, but you are somehow, inexplicably, even worse than me!”

Bucky throws his hands up in exasperation.

“Bucky—” Steve protests again and Bucky stops him. He’s had enough of this. Frankly, he’s had enough of _both_ of them. They are both so very stupid and it is now time for them to dust off the two brain cells they have collectively between them and finally use them.

He fits his flesh hand to Steve’s cheek and firmly turns him to look at him.

“Steve, stop,” Bucky says. And then, “Steve, what do you _want_?”

He doesn’t know what choice the multiverse gave Steve and he’s not going to ask to find out. Steve deserves his own secrets. Steve, of all people, deserves his own choices.

Bucky wants to give him the freedom of that choice. He just wants to be there for him when he makes it.

“I want you,” Steve says, his eyes locked on Bucky’s, a hint of desperation in his voice.

“You have me, stupid,” Bucky says and presses his fingers more firmly into Steve’s jaw. “What else? They gave you a choice. You told me that. So what are you going to choose?”

Steve looks nervous at that. Bucky doesn’t know why. He can’t possibly imagine what is eating at him, what the universe could take from him after already having taken so much. What more could it want, could it ask, of its tired, battle-worn son?

It doesn’t matter what it is, in the end. If Steve wants to stay in this world, Bucky will stay with him. If he wants to go back, he’ll do that too. If he wants to fall through the multiverse and be stuck in the fucking apocalypse, well Bucky knows how to use a fucking gun.

Wherever Steve goes, Bucky will go with him this time.

He won’t let Steve go alone.

And he won’t take no for an answer.

“It’s irreversible,” Steve says quietly. “If I take their offer, there’s no going back.”

“Okay.” Bucky nods. “Do you want that?”

For some reason, Steve looks at his hands. He closes them and opens them, as though studying his palms.

“I’ve been Captain America longer than I’ve been Steve,” Steve says softly. “Erskine offered me something I wanted and I took it, without ever stopping to think of what would happen next. It made sense then. The war and all. How desperately I wanted to serve in it. But...after.”

Bucky watches him closely. There’s something sparking in the back of his mind, a loose thread he can’t quite grasp, or something he’s so close to understanding.

“What did happen next?” he asks. “What happened, after?”

Steve opens his hand again. Curls his long fingers into his palms.

“I said yes. I served in the war. And then I woke up and there was no more war. Well, no. There was a different war. The same one. The same thing over and over again,” Steve says. His eyes are shining. “I lost something that was important to me.”

Somehow, Bucky knows he’s not talking about Bucky.

“And I think,” Steve says, closing his eyes. “I never really got it back.”

Bucky remembers waking up on a stone table in the European theater, thinking he was hallucinating. His best friend there, the face he had missed the most, the one face he had never wanted to see there. Not there. Steve, sparking to life, like a dream Bucky had manifested just before rattling out his dying breath.

But Bucky hadn’t died on that table and Steve hadn’t been a dream. He had been real, but impossible. Bucky had clutched his arm.

_I thought you were smaller._

Bucky thinks he’s starting to understand.

“Steve,” he says softly. “What happened to your supersoldier body?”

Steve’s mouth curves up slowly at the corners and he opens his eyes.

Bucky takes a breath and asks, “What’s the offer?”

*

The lobby of the former Avengers Tower is empty, eerie without the others there and without anyone else around, for that matter. Bucky’s not sure what kind of a reality this one is, except that it seems to be some kind of liminal space—purgatory or a limbo in the multiverse.

A whole world that resembles their own, but in it, only four people.

Bucky’s the first to pull Thor into a hug when he walks through that door, surprising them both and nearly shocking Steve into falling off his feet. Bucky grins as Thor—in his large, soft body, with the long hair and viking beard—thumps him on his back and Bucky flips off both Steve and Loki for the way they’re making faces at him.

“Hate to say it, but I think I’ve grown used to you,” Bucky says when they pull apart. “It would kind of suck to lose you in the multiverse after we’ve been through 170 worlds together.”

Thor strokes his chin and says, “It would be rather a waste, wouldn’t it? For one, I am very handsome and very funny and you are perhaps a 6.”

“Hey!” Bucky protests, while Loki snickers.

“For another, I would have no one to complain to about how no Loki could compare to my genderless vampire queen who could not keep their hands off of me.”

“Hey!” Loki protests behind them and Bucky looks as nauseated as he feels.

“I don’t need to hear about that!”

Thor laughs, a big belly laugh, and Bucky has to admit that it warms something in him. They’ve been through a bunch of really weird shit together, him and Thor. Maybe Steve’s friends aren’t as useless as he thought.

Or maybe, they’re not just _Steve’s_ useless friends anymore.

“So you’re Loki,” Bucky says, eyeing who he assumes is the 2012 counterpart of the dark-haired, borderline goth Norse god he had found himself so bizarrely close to in almost every parallel universe.

“Yes,” Loki says, eyeing him back. “You are the one Steve Rogers is so pathetic over?”

“Hey!” Steve protests behind them.

“Yeah,” Bucky says with a grin. “Pathetic, would you say?”

“Absolutely unbearable,” Loki confides in him. “Honestly, I would have stabbed him sooner, but he was so _sad_.”

“Loki—” Steve’s voice comes and they both ignore it.

“Don’t count it against him,” Bucky says with a grin. “I’m really hot.”

Loki’s mouth twitches and then curves up into a wide smile.

“I hear you have murdered a lot of people,” he says.

“I’ve heard _you’ve_ murdered a lot of people,” Bucky says.

“I see now why you two were best friends in every universe we visited,” Thor observes.

Bucky and Loki eye each other with glittering, delighted interest.

“I hate this,” Steve says, arms crossed at his small, but firm chest. “Let’s get home before they do something stupid.”

Bucky reaches into a silver pouch in his jacket and pulls it out. There’s a faint tinkling noise inside as pieces of glass jostle together.

“What, like break the fourth dimension trying to tackle a literal alien god to the ground?”

Steve looks momentarily embarrassed.

“He kneed me in the groin.”

“I won’t be apologizing for that,” Loki says matter-of-factly.

Thor chuckles and Steve sighs as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, black bag. He unzips the top and Bucky can see the glow of faint blue from inside.

“Do you think this will work?” Thor asks, cautiously.

The two of them are close together now, Thor’s large body next to Bucky’s own and Bucky across from Steve, who has Loki looking over his shoulder.

“We collected all of the pieces,” Loki says. His fair face glows blue in the light of the shards. “The Tesseract is powered by the space stone. It punches through space and time, into and out of different realities. I believe when we broke it, it made the walls between the universes thinner.”

“What the fuck,” Bucky mutters.

“It created wormholes that connected each parallel universe to each other,” Loki says. “That is how we were all able to keep falling through them.”

Fucking Thanos and his goddamned fucking miserable stones.

“Are these all the pieces?” Bucky asks, nervously. God he hopes so.

“I don’t know why we’d end up here otherwise,” Steve mumbles.

Bucky doesn’t feel like telling the group, _well, I wished really hard for it that last time_ , so he just nods instead.

“Put them back together,” Thor says. “And the Tesseract will reform. And once it has—”

It seems too much to hope or even say it out loud. Luckily, Steve is either stupid or has nerves of steel. Sometimes, Bucky is pretty sure it’s a combination of both.

“We use it to go back home,” Steve says. His voice is firm, eyebrows knit together in that way that indicates he’s made up his mind.

He comes up to Thor’s shoulder now, partly because he no longer has the height of his supersoldier body and partly because Thor has regained the form he had originally fallen into the multiverse with. Somehow, both fit them perfectly. Thor had raised a questioning eyebrow at Steve upon seeing him, but had embraced him without question. Bucky had been relieved, but he understood.

Who were any of them to question anyone else their own reality and decision?  
  


_“I miss it,” Steve said to Bucky, there by the water. “Is that weird? I hated that body for so long. It was too small. Too weak. I was always sick. I thought...God, so many times, I thought that it would all be better, if I could just have a different body. If I could be a different person.”_

_“That’s not weird, Steve,” Bucky said._

_“Feels weird,” Steve mumbled._

_Bucky shook his head._

_“I think it’s easy to blame yourself when you’re in the middle of something so shitty. You look at everything and think fuck, I’m so fucking weak. You forget all the ways you’re strong too.”_

_Steve raised his eyebrows and Bucky ignored him._

_“Your body betrayed you so many times. But it also fought for you. It was always there, trying its best to stay alive. You didn’t need to be Captain America to be strong. You’ve always been strong as hell, Steve.”_

_Steve looked at him nervously, but with a smile that was growing larger._

_“A lot of big words there. You get brain-zapped in the multiverse?”_

_“I have been to a lot of therapy since you left me,” Bucky grinned._

_Steve rolled his eyes, but smiled._

_He rolled his shoulders and then turned toward Bucky._

_“All that stuff you said. The same go for you, Barnes?”_

_Bucky had been embarrassed for a moment. The instinct was always there—to deflect, to hide behind brainwashed justifications and terrified half-excuses. Bucky had done a lot of bad shit that Steve had never had to do._

_But that was the thing, wasn’t it?_

_He had been forced to do that. Without HYDRA, without the torture and the brainwashing and the violent history, Bucky would have been a different person. He was a different person. In a hundred different universes out there, Bucky Barnes was exactly who he always should have been._

_So his instinct was to deflect, but then he thought: no. There was no need to be embarrassed or ashamed of his past anymore. Like all of the good things, the bad things had gotten him to where he was today—next to Steve, at the beginning of another chance._

_“Absolutely,” Bucky said._

_Steve exhaled at that—a long, relieved breath, curling out from his gut._

_That was when he had finally lost the nervous look about him. Steve curled and uncurled his fingers one last time and said, “I’m done being Captain America, Buck.”_

_“Done how?”_

_“Done,” Steve said. “With all of it. I’ve given him enough and he’s taken enough from me. Now it’s time for me to be someone else.”_

_Bucky grinned then—a genuine, happy, warm grin._

_“About fucking time,” he said. “So, who are you gonna be now then, asshole?”_

_Steve’s eyes lit up._

_“Oh I don’t know. Just some guy named Steve Rogers.”_

_“Hm,” Bucky said and slowly covered Steve’s hand with his own. “Sounds annoying as hell.”_

_Steve laughed and leaned forward to press a kiss to Bucky’s cheek. Under his lips, Bucky’s skin warmed up._

_“Yeah,” Steve said, with a smile. “But I hear he’s real cute.”_

  
Bucky unties the ribbon at the top of the silver threaded bag from Jotunheim. Inside, the shards of the Tesseract seem to blink up at him.

“Are we ready?” he asks.

Next to him, Thor grins and claps a large hand on his shoulder. Loki gives a slight nod.

Across from him, Steve catches his eyes. He warms with a smile.

“Let’s go home, Buck,” he says. “We’ve been away long enough.”

Bucky takes a breath and Steve dumps the shards from his bag into the Jotunheim pouch.

For a moment, nothing happens.

The air stands still, the atmosphere close.

Then, suddenly, there’s a sharp crackling sound that rends through the space and the pouch bursts into a blinding, blue-white light. Bucky shouts and drops it, shielding his eyes with his metal arm and shoving backwards.

The others spring back with matching shouts. There’s a noise like a whistle screaming in their ears, growing louder and louder, splitting their eardrums, drumming their heart rates higher and higher and hi—

Then, suddenly, it stops.

Bucky moves his metal arm from in front of his eyes.

Spinning in circles, floating in the middle of the air in front of them, is a vivid, shining, restored blue cube.

The four of them stare at it, mouths agape.

“I hate that thing,” Thor mutters loudly.

“Hang on tight,” Bucky says. “This is the worst part.”

Bucky, Steve, Thor, and Loki step forward, and reach for the Tesseract at the same time.

* 

**art:** The four multiverse travelers looking up at the floating, restored Tesseract; **art by:** nalonzooo

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nikki pointed out to me that in the end, they end up a mixture of all canons: EG Thor, FAWTS Bucky, TFA Steve, and 2012/Avengers Loki. I didn't even notice that, but her art made it so clear. I have rejected canon and chosen to create a new (better!), mixed one. 
> 
> I also have a lot of thoughts about Steve here at the end, so without being too tl;dr what I'll say is that Bucky and Thor have their own journeys and Steve and Loki have similar ones too, through whatever realities the multiverse pitched them into. Steve's journey, I think, is less about self worth and more about finding himself apart from the mantle of Captain America. So he's given the choice (by the Fates, by the stones, the Tesseract, however you want to characterize it) to keep the original choice he made or make a new one. Both are valid narratives for Steve (I also love the idea of him embracing the original choice he made and being at peace with that finally), but to me, it seems like a fitting hero's journey to this particular tale that in the end he chooses himself--his original self. He chose his big body for big reasons a long time ago and now that he's at this crossroads, he chooses to let that (and Cap) go so he can find out who Steve Rogers really is. And I love that for him.
> 
> ANYWAY, sorry, that's just some unsolicited author's commentary/rambling. Thank you for reading. ♥


	20. Chapter Twenty. [ epilogue ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Things never really end up the way you expect them to,” Bucky says. “Sometimes you think you’re gonna have a nice, quiet life with your best friend in a shitty tenement apartment. Maybe you’d go with some gals and maybe he would, but it wouldn’t be memorable. One or the other of you would get married and then you’d have a family. You’d grow old and die, hopefully close to each other. But it would be...boring. Unremarkable.”
> 
> Thor looks over at Bucky. 
> 
> “You are anything but unremarkable, Bucky Barnes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think I would let you all go without a long epilogue, did you? :) ♥

**[ earth. 2025.]**

*

  
**art:** Sam, Captain America, and Bucky, The Winter Soldier, doing some Avenging; **art by:** nalonzooo

“That is the last goddamned time I answer a message from Hill that starts with _need help with some flying murder beans, please_ ,” Sam says, puffing out a worn breath from his tired body. He wipes a hand against his sweaty, grimy forehead and his wings collapse in behind him.

“What the hell?” Bucky exclaims and shifts his Stark-issued rifle to the straps at his back. “She said _please_ to you?”

Around them, lower Manhattan smolders gently. The sky has cleared up and the damage is minimal—for generous definitions of the word _minimal_. Oh sure Katz’s Delicatessen isn’t going to be serving pastrami sandwiches that should legally qualify as a _mound_ of deli meat for the next few months and all right, no musical act is going to be headlining an evening at the Mercury Lounge any time soon, but it wasn’t like _millions_ of dollars in damage and no one had died and only a couple of ambulances parked by Houston and Bowery were really having their First Aid kits reasonably tested.

All in all, Bucky would chalk this one up to a success.

Also it had been kind of fun shooting those colorful, murderous alien beans out of the sky. Each shot made a really satisfying _splat_ , to say nothing of the rainbow-colored alien cold cuts that would now have to be scraped off the sidewalks and business storefronts.

_“That’s not a great look,” Sam had said to Bucky as Bucky’s aim had taken out a lime green and a bright pink murder bean and alien guts had splattered across the side of a Nepalese restaurant._

_“It’s Manhattan,” Bucky had grunted. “Streets look worse on trash day.”_

“First of all, Hill definitely has the hots for me,” Sam says and straps his own Stark-issued guns into his holsters.

“Maria Hill is gay,” Bucky says, loudly.

“Maria Hill is bisexual,” Sam says. “And she definitely has the hots for me.”

“Maria Hill has never done a thing wrong in her life,” Bucky says, glaring at Sam. “Like have bad taste in men.”

Sam flips Bucky off and Bucky grins.

“ _Second of all_ , you unrepentant jackass,” Sam says. “I’m Captain motherfucking America.”

“Yeah you are, champ,” Bucky says and claps a filthy hand to Sam’s filthy shoulder. His Captain America suit is also covered with alien gore.

They both are, really.

Bucky stinks to high heaven and back, but he’s having a great fucking time.

Around them, SHIELD agents fan out, picking over the scene. There are some working with the EMTs and there are others helping deal with the leftover alien guts and civilian trauma. Somewhere behind them, Parker is doing something or other in his dumb Spider suit and Ant-Man and the Wasp are either human-sized again or buzzing around irritating the everliving fuck out of Nick Fury.

Bucky really hopes it’s the latter.

He likes Fury, but he likes him better when he’s been annoyed out of life and mind.

“You two got plans this weekend?” Sam asks. He takes his goggles off and Bucky can see the tired lines by his eyes. They’ve been on three different missions over the past three weeks. It actually hasn’t been terrible, but that’s a lot of fighting and not a whole lot of time for rest.

That’s why—

“Not just the weekend,” Bucky says, with a grin. He runs his metal fingers through his matted, dirty hair. “I got the month off.”

Sam lets out a low whistle.

“How the fuck’d you manage that?”

“You’re not the only one Hill has the hots for,” Bucky says with a grin and a wink.

Sam blinks at him and then smirks.

“You mean your husband?” he says. “You mean Maria Hill gave you a whole fucking month off because your husband is the most relentless, stubborn bastard on the whole fucking planet and she’s over the moon for him?”

“If there’s one piece of advice I have for you, Samuel,” Bucky says and Sam makes a disgusted face. That only makes Bucky grin wider. “Marry way, way out of your league.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sam says with a chuckle. “So, where are you two going?”

Bucky smiles and starts walking backwards. He parked his motorcycle along Broome and if anyone got alien guts on it or if the NY-fucking-PD had the fucking audacity to give him a ticket, he was going to scream and then go have some words with City Hall.

Well, he’d let Steve have some words with someone at City Hall.

“Thought we’d get out of the city,” Bucky says. “Go and see some friends.”

Sam’s expression softens at that. His eyes crinkle at the corner as he smiles.

Bucky tries not to feel terribly fond.

“Tell his royal pain in my ass I say hi,” Sam says.

“Wait—do you mean Steve or Thor?” Bucky shouts from the other side of the sidewalk, blinking.

Sam laughs and shouts back, “Both!”

Bucky, grinning and bone-tired, turns on his heels and starts jogging back to his motorcycle.

  
The ride from the Lower East Side across the Williamsburg Bridge home to Brooklyn is one that Bucky always enjoys. It’s not a long ride, but it’s just long enough to shake the feel of the Avengers off of him, to regain all of the pieces of Bucky Barnes he has to pick up before he walks back in through that door. It’s nice to have the wind in his hair, the water glinting underneath.

It’s nice to be on his way somewhere.

Back to Steve.

On his way home.

  
He finds parking on their street and is halfway up the steps of their Park Slope brownstone when his phone rings. Bucky fumbles in his jacket pocket for keys and manages to answer the phone in the process.

“If you take any longer, I’m going to do something—dramatic,” Steve says.

“Isn’t that just a normal Tuesday for you?” Bucky answers.

“Shut up!” Steve says into the phone. “You’re the worst husband I’ve ever married.”

“I’m the only husband you’ve ever married,” Bucky says and pauses. “Right? I’m the only one?”

“Yeah, you hot, unbearable goblin,” Steve says. “I made one mistake and now I’m stuck for life.”

“I _would_ make a hot goblin, wouldn’t I?” Bucky says, grinning.

“I couldn’t say,” Steve says dryly. He cracks a second later though, his voice taking on the quality of a whine. “You’ve been gone for so long, I’m literally dying of boredom.”

Bucky can’t help how stupid his face looks right now. He gets a sight of it in the glass window of the brownstone door, just bright and open, the dumbest smile lighting up his features. It’s impossible for him to stop.

He and Steve had married in a small, private ceremony in a small town along the Hudson River, a few hours outside the City. Thor and Loki had been their witnesses, Sam as Steve’s best man and, shockingly, Thor as Bucky’s. Maria Hill had been their officiant. Steve had slipped the gold band onto Bucky’s metal finger and Bucky had cupped his face and kissed him before Maria had even finished asking all of her questions. Loki had made it rain flower petals, Sam was in charge of the playlist, and Thor had definitely somehow gotten all of them drunk on Asgardian champagne. They had danced for hours by the water, under the starlight. It had been a quiet, joyous, terribly romantic affair.

Bucky hasn’t stopped smiling since.

It’s honestly disgusting and he and Loki hate himself for it.

“Weren’t you supposed to be figuring out your future?” Bucky asks, amused. “Something about looking through an online catalogue of potential careers that have nothing to do with being a superhero or carrying the weight of an entire nation on your back?”

“Yeah, about that,” Steve says and pauses dramatically. “What if I became an actor?”

Bucky snorts. He gets the key in and jostles it around to turn the lock.

“So when you said dramatic, you meant it literally,” he says.

“Shut _up_. I hate you,” Steve says.

“No you don’t,” Bucky says.

“Well I _could_ ,” Steve mumbles.

Bucky chuckles.

“Sure you could, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that when I’m mad at you,” Steve says. “Seriously though, when are you coming home? I’m making spaghetti and if you don’t get home soon, I’m definitely going to set something on fire.”

Bucky bites back a laugh and closes the door behind him. He makes quick work of going up the stairs, shucking off his grimey boots outside and unlocking and opening the door to their floor.

“Bucky?” Steve’s saying into the phone. “Buck, I am dead serious, I don’t think tomato sauce is supposed to be this color.”

“So I guess sous chef is out of the question,” Bucky grins at the door.

Steve freezes as he’s staring into a boiling pot of something that smells shockingly good. He turns and—

Oh, this is the part that has Bucky grinning goofily. It doesn’t matter how many missions Hill unceremoniously texts him about or how many aliens try to shove him into their digestive tracts or how long he has to suffer Wilson’s inane commentary on the latest season of some HBO show that Bucky has also watched, but does not agree with him about.

When Bucky’s gone—for days, or for hours, or even for a few minutes down the block—he gets to come home to this.

Steve, barefoot, with a button-up shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, rolled up at the sleeves and half-tucked into his pants, turning as the door opens and just—lighting up. Steve’s entire face—his blue eyes, his flushed cheeks, his pink mouth—brightening at the sight of Bucky. As though no matter how long he’s gone or what he’s gone to do, there is nothing better than this: Bucky returning home to him.

“Oh,” Steve breathes out, happily. “You’re home.”

“Honey,” Bucky says, grinning back, “I’m home.”

  
Their life together is everything Bucky had once been afraid of: warm, loving, domestic, and good. Steve helps patch up any cuts and knocks Bucky gets from missions and Bucky breaks all protocol and confidentiality agreements that Maria Hill could not _possibly_ have expected he was going to keep and updates Steve on every last minute of every single mission.

Sometimes, Steve has a lot to say. Sometimes, he doesn’t.

Bucky is the Avenger now—serving in his own way and creating his own purpose, and Steve is doing that too—finding his own purpose—but a different way, out of uniform.

He doesn’t have the rattle of hard breath or chest pains or color blindness he suffered from when he was younger. He no longer has a supersoldier body, but he doesn’t have his exact old one either. Steve is somewhere in between, a mixture of the person the serum had forced him to become and the person he could have been without it, if his body had given him the chance. He’s figuring it out slowly and that suits Bucky just fine.

Bucky’s also figuring it out slowly. They’re figuring it out slowly, together.

Steve helps Bucky strip out of his disgusting uniform, which in all honesty probably needs to be burned, and Bucky greedily untucks Steve’s button up and pulls it over his narrow hips and shoulders which have broadened somewhat with all of the hours he _still_ goes to the gym. Underneath it all, Steve is healthy; all lean muscles and smooth skin. Bucky’s heart goes skittering in his chest, the way it always does whenever he has Steve this close.

Bucky is covered in dried grime and stinks to high heaven, but he can’t help it. He gets one hand on Steve’s hip and pulls him closer.

Steve, laughing, leans up on his tiptoes and, hand in Bucky’s matted hair, pulls Bucky forward for a kiss.

They kiss for a few minutes, nothing terribly filthy, just enough to get their bearings around them again. Bucky feels the adrenaline of the fight and the tension of the call drain from his shoulders. Steve gets his fingers into the meat of Bucky’s back and Bucky gasps in relief into their kiss at the pressure on his sore muscles.

Steve pulls back with a small smile.

“Shower,” he says.

He shucks off his pants and his underwear and Bucky watches, unapologetically.

Steve’s grinning as he steps into the shower and Bucky, his head fuzzy with a lot of different things, steps in after him.

  
After he and Steve have made good use of the tiled shower wall, they do things that Bucky would never have imagined for himself. They eat Steve’s questionable spaghetti. They finish off a bottle of wine and Bucky makes a quick box cake that Steve does a terrible job of frosting. They laugh and jostle each other and Bucky licks frosting off of Steve’s nose.

They collapse on the couch together, Bucky against one side and Steve sprawled across the length of it, cushioned against Bucky’s chest, Bucky’s arm around his middle. They watch TV for hours, mindlessly, pressed close together.

First, it’s some baking show. Then it’s a comedy. Then it’s a movie and another baking show and all the while, Steve is right there against him, Bucky’s fingers in his hair, and every once in a while, Steve turns his face up toward Bucky and Bucky leans down to give him a kiss.

  
Steve eventually turns the TV off and offers a hand to Bucky.

Bucky, grinning, takes it and is pulled up. His husband might have delicate bone structure, but he has the strength of a former genetically enhanced supersoldier. The stamina of one too.

Steve leans up on his toes, his strong arms circling around Bucky’s shoulders.

“Time for you to take me to bed, Mr. Rogers,” he says, with a grin.

“Is that so, Mr. Barnes?” Bucky says.

It’s so fucking cheesy it’s almost unbearable. Steve wrinkles his nose and Bucky, warming from the inside out, leans forward and kisses it. He gets a hand on Steve’s back and lifts him effortlessly, Steve’s legs going easily around his waist.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I married you for your dick. Time to put out. Chop chop.”

Bucky can’t help but laugh at that, long and clear.

Steve’s grinning widely when he finishes.

“I like you like this,” he says.

“Horny?”

“No, you fucking loser,” Steve says, exasperated, and kisses him. “Happy.”

Bucky’s grin fades into something impossibly soft. He and Steve press their foreheads together. Bucky’s heart skips a beat and he presses his mouth against Steve’s own.

“Yeah,” he says softly, against Steve’s lips. “Guess it’s not too bad.”

  
Bucky does as he’s asked. He carries Steve to bed. He dumps him on the covers and crawls over him. Steve gets an arm around Bucky’s back and pulls him closer. Bucky noses at Steve’s jaw and Steve mouths gentling kisses down his throat.

Eventually, they pull their clothes off.

Their sighs and gasps are lost to the quiet of their room, the dark lit by a sliver of light spilling in through the window. They’re in no rush tonight, so they take their time, tracing paths over familiar slopes of muscle and smooth panes of skin. They give what is needed and they take what they want, slowly taking each other apart and carefully piecing each other back together again.

Their touches are soft and kisses are warm. When their fingers intertwine, their rings glint in the drifting moonlight.

*

  
**art:** Bucky, listening to Steve's strong heart; **art by:** nalonzooo

It’s not the domesticity that Bucky had never seen for himself: it’s the peace. The happiness and safety. It’s the incontrovertible proof of love, of finding your person, and the aching, unshakeable feeling of knowing this is all you will ever need or ask for again, in this life and any other.

*

There’s an empty bar hall that, with a little tender loving care and a lot of deep scrubbing and some rearranging of platforms and stools and mirrors, makes the perfect place from which to conduct important affairs of realms and kingdoms.

“What kingdom?” Valkyrie asks. “We are the size of two small fishing villages and one empty beer hall.”

“Asgard is a people, not a place,” Thor says in response.

“Yeah and the number of people would fill two small fishing villages and one empty beer hall,” Valkyrie replies. Then, with a crooked smirk, “My King.”

Thor pauses.

“Well, they are a very stalwart people,” he says. “That must count for something.” He turns to Loki, who is across the long table from him, reading through letters to the Asgardian throne with perfect, utter boredom. “That _does_ count for something, right?”

Loki, his face in one hand, skimming over some letter that looks only a little short of painful, raises his gaze and tilts his head.

“Well I do not know that it counts for a whole lot,” he says. “But, sure, I guess it counts for something.”

“Aha!” Thor exclaims victoriously, turning to face Valkyrie in triumph.

Valkyrie rolls her eyes and hoists herself up on what was previously the bar counter.

“My mistake,” she drawls. “You have two small fishing villages and one empty beer hall’s worth of very _stalwart_ people.”

“Yes, thank you,” Thor says and turns back to Loki. “It is a fine kingdom I have inherited.”

Loki snorts and crumples the letter and throws it over Thor’s shoulder.

“Hey, you know there’s no trash bin over there, right?” Valkyrie asks.

The floor behind Thor is littered with crumpled balls of paper that Loki has tossed.

“Yes,” Loki says.

“What was wrong with that one?” Thor asks, a bit worried. “Was it from the Vanir, asking for resources again? Or Xandarians, I hear they have gone past Titan in order to find a new home. I have been waiting from a missive from the Princess of Niflheim—”

“Is that the one in love with you?” Valkyrie asks, swinging her legs.

“No,” Thor says with a cough.

Yes. The Princess of Niflheim did not seem to mind that Asgard was a ruin of its former glory or that Thor had a soft beer belly now. She did not even seem to mind rumors that he had taken on a lover, someone within his own court. She was actually quite tenacious about the whole affair and if Thor did not think that Loki would murder her in his sleep, he would be very flattered.

“Loki,” Thor says. “Why are you throwing away these letters?”

Loki looks up from the latest one and gives Thor such a look that would fell lesser creatures. Luckily, Thor is used to this look. It’s the one Loki gives him on any given Tuesday.

“Because,” he says. “They are boring. And I cannot stand being bored.”

Thor and Valkyrie pause at that.

“Are you telling me those have all been perfectly good letters?” Thor asks.

“That depends on your definition of good,” Loki says.

“From potential allies and—even worse—potential enemies,” Thor says.

“I suppose so,” Loki replies.

“Asking us for favors, offering us resources.” The corner of Thor’s eye is twitching. “Perhaps a warning of war.”

“Hm,” Loki says and crumples another. “Honestly, I haven’t gotten so far. I read the first paragraph and if I am bored, I simply throw them away.”

“Loki!” Thor bellows and from her perch, Valkyrie dissolves into raucous and, frankly, disrespectful laughter.

This is who Thor is left to work with.

They had reappeared from the multiverse, Thor with a Loki who had been learning in fits and starts everything that had happened to his future iteration since 2012. It hadn’t been easy and it certainly hadn’t been perfect, but what the Dark Elves and Surtur and Hela and Odin hadn’t done to this Loki, the multiverse had shown him anyway. What Thor was left with was a brother who he had to reacquaint himself with and a relationship that needed to knit itself back together in a very different way.

“It’s strange,” Thor had told Bucky, during one of Bucky’s early visits to New Asgard. “He is my brother in every sense, but he does not have the same set of experiences as I do, after 2012.”

“Kinda seems like he never had the same set of experiences you did, pal,” Bucky had told him, while eating an apple.

That had made Thor frown.

“Listen,” Bucky had said. “Just treat him like someone got a hold of him, brainwashed and tortured him, and now you’re stuck with this kind of fucked up guy suffering from specific amnesia.”

Thor had given Bucky an astonished look and Bucky had grinned, finishing his apple.

“It’s worse than it sounds.”

It hadn’t been the worst advice. There is an unaccountable amount lost between Thor and Loki in those memories and it would cause Thor grief, if Loki took it to heart. He doesn’t. The difference between the Loki who had tried to control an entire planet and the Loki beside him now is a chasm of multiple universes. That is to say, he’s not the same as the Loki that died, but he’s not so different either. This Loki wants to _try_ , and that is all Thor has ever asked of him.

Anyway, so they come back, spit out by the Tesseract, and Valkyrie is waiting for them in New Asgard.

Thor is loath to ask for a crown back that he has given freely, but it turns out he does not have to.

“There’s a reason you were born to this and I wasn’t,” Valkyrie tells him. “I’m a warrior, Thor. I’m not made for rule.”

“You would be a great ruler,” Thor says, looking into her dark eyes and Valkyrie snorts.

“Yeah, I know that,” she says. “I’m fucking great. But just because you’re great at something doesn’t mean you’re meant for it. Or that it’s what you want.”

Thor nods, grateful for her wisdom and, above all, friendship.

“What are you meant for then?” he asks.

“Oh, who can say?” Valkyrie says. “Maybe I’ll stay here a while, maybe I’ll go somewhere else. There’s a lot of space to cover and I need a hot girlfriend.”

“You know,” Thor says to her then and scrubs a hand through his viking beard. “I have a friend I haven’t seen in a while.”

  
So that’s how Thor ends up with an absurd and borderline useless Royal Advising Council of three: his brother, Valkyrie, and the Lady Sif, who Thor had finally gotten a message to and who, much to his satisfaction, was exactly stoic and violent enough to be the hot girlfriend Valkyrie deserved.

“I’m sick of both of you,” Valkyrie says eventually and shoves herself off the bar top. “I’m going to go find Sif.”

“Whatever will you do when you find her?” Loki drawls, elbow on the table.

“I am going to find my hot, Asgardian warrior girlfriend,” Valkyrie says and shares a smile—sharp, with all vicious teeth. “And I’m going to fuck her.”

Thor lets out an aggrieved sigh, but Loki just tilts his head.

“You know, I had always wondered which of you—” he gestures vaguely.

“ _Loki_!” Thor says, but Valkyrie’s wolf grin just widens.

She winks at them. “Later, idiots.”

Thor rubs his hands down his face. He’s surrounded by the most useless Council known to Asgardian royalty. Surely Odin never had to deal with this, although then there’s no real accounting for any of his actions, up to and including locking away his Hel-cursed daughter for thousands of years without any indication and also disappearing into mist at the very moment when the proverbial Bilgesnipe shit hit the proverbial fan.

“Thor,” Loki says.

Thor refuses to remove his hands from his face.

“ _Thor_.”

“No.”

“Thor, _pay attention to me_.”

“Go away!” Thor says, mumbling into his palms.

“Oh, for the love of—” Loki says and suddenly Thor’s palms are being pried away from his face and before he can protest or even glare up at him, he has a lap full of bored, petulant, bratty Norse god.

“Can I help you?” Thor asks, trying to level his brother with an unimpressed look.

“Yes,” Loki says. He slides his arms around Thor’s shoulders and although Thor is desperate to resist, he knows he’s useless to do so.

He sighs, giving in, and wraps his large arms around the middle of Loki’s back.

“How can I help you, your highness?” Thor says sarcastically.

“Oh.” Loki beams. “I like that. Shall we try that one out?”

“Nope,” Thor says.

Loki’s grin turns down into a scowl.

“What happened to your sense of fun?”

“It must have disappeared in between the fourth or fifth time you stabbed me,” Thor says dryly.

Loki waves that away with one hand.

“Water under the bridge.”

“Blood under the bridge, more like,” Thor mutters under his breath.

Loki shifts in his lap and taps Thor’s jaw to get him to pay attention to him.

“What?”

“The Vanir entreat us to visit,” Loki says. “Although we have fallen on hard and desperate times, they still owe an allegiance to you because of Hogun. And all of those little rebellions you helped squash, I suppose. The Xandarians have now settled on a blip of a planet somewhere past Sakaar, the Grandmaster keeps writing to you for some reason, and yes, I believe the Princess of Niflheim is set on your hand in marriage.”

Thor blinks at him.

“I am a very fast reader,” Loki says and leaning closer, “And I am very good at my job.”

Thor is mesmerized by those green eyes. But then, that is nothing new.

He smiles and presses a light kiss to Loki’s mouth.

“Yes you are,” he says. “When you are not being completely terrible and even more chaotic and slightly useless.”

“Imagine marrying someone who was not any of those things,” Loki says with a grin. “Are you going to say yes to her?”

Thor makes such a face that Loki _cackles_.

“She’s very nice,” Thor says, apologetically. “I am….sure.”

Loki’s fingers are in Thor’s hair, scritching at his scalp. Thor lets out a pleased sigh.

“You would be so bored,” Loki says. “You would lose your mind immediately.”

“You assume I have any part of my mind left,” Thor says and closes his eyes.

Loki hums, carding his finger through soft strands. Thor’s eyes open when he feels Loki kiss him.

“A fine pair we are,” Loki says.

“Mother would be so proud,” Thor grins.

“Mother would have an absolute heart attack, given the circumstances,” Loki says, his mouth twitching.

“Maybe,” Thor says. “However, she did hide a Hel-bent, bloodthirsty sister from us and the knowledge that you were stolen from a very angry and terribly vengeful frost giant.”

Loki snorts.

“Ah family secrets,” he says, pleasantly. “What fun.”

Thor chuckles and tightens his grip around Loki’s back. Loki watches him with no little amusement. Once or twice, he dips in and the two of them share a kiss—nothing too ornery, just light, almost sweet presses of their mouths together and soft, matching sighs.

“Would you?” Thor asks, stroking lightly down Loki’s back.

“Would I what?”

Thor pauses.

It’s not that he’s nervous, it’s that—okay, he’s nervous. It’s one thing to have thought about it continuously over the last year and another to actually say it out loud.

He takes a breath.

“Marry me,” Thor says.

Loki stills, his eyes slightly widening.

“Not now,” Thor reassures him, knowing how quick Loki is to frighten. “Unless you wanted. Maybe sometime in the near future. Or sometime in the distant future.”

For once in his life, Loki seems to have been shocked speechless.

“We have thousands of years left to us,” Thor says, tightening his grip. “You do not have to give me an answer now. But sometime. In the next thousand years.”

Thor can hear Loki’s shocked, nervous breathing—the way his eyes have dilated. He can almost hear his brain working, a hundred miles per hour, probably with every unkind thought he can manage.

“Loki,” he says firmly. “Breathe.”

“What about—the princess?” Loki manages to say, his vowels all strangled.

“As you said, she would bore me,” Thor says with a smile.

“You are the king, Thor, there will be others—”

“Let there be,” Thor says.

“Don’t be foolish, there will be good alliances out there. Alliances that can give us power once again. Better lands. Restore what we lost—”

“Loki,” Thor says again. This time he’s touching his face, Thor’s large hand sculpted to Loki’s delicately carved cheek. “We will never have what we lost. There can never be any restoration of that.”

“But.” Loki looks skittish. No—he looks _scared_.

“I do not care about any of that,” Thor says. “After all I have lost, after all we have been through, you must know the only thing I really care about is you.”

Maybe that’s what Thor should have told Loki—all of those years ago. Maybe if he had, they would have had a different course. Maybe if he had stopped, offered his hand to his brother, they would not have diverged as they did. Maybe they would have diverged anyway.

There’s no way of knowing now. But if Thor has learned anything from the multiverse, it’s that there is no world out there, no reality in existence, where he isn’t drawn to this annoying, terribly onerous, horribly beautiful, murderous creature.

Thor loves him, in a way he could never love anyone or anything else.

“Oh,” Loki says.

“If the answer is no, that’s all right,” Thor says gently. He smooths back Loki’s hair. “If you will not have me, that is your choice to make and I will not begrudge you that decision.”

Loki’s quiet for a minute, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Then, gently, his breathing starts to even out.

“All right,” he says.

Thor’s chest constricts.

“All right?” he raises an eyebrow.

“I will give you an answer,” Loki says. “But it will not be today. And it will likely not be tomorrow.”

Thor smiles and slides his hand to the back of Loki’s neck. He tugs him closer and kisses him.

“That’s fine,” he says. “I am perfectly willing to wait.”

*

  
**art:** "I am perfectly willing to wait," Thor says to Loki.; **art by:** nalonzooo

*

They park the motorcycle by the side of the road winding up to the village. New Asgard has grown in the past year, with new houses being built and visitors from on and off the planet, a neat port of a few ships that do some trading business, and children running around in the cool autumn breeze.

“Did you tell him we were coming?” Bucky asks, taking off his helmet.

“Nope,” Steve says, taking off his own. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Loki hates that,” Bucky says. “He bitches at us every single time we show up unannounced. And this time we’re all going—Steve...you did tell them, right?”

Steve gives him could very justifiably be called an evil grin.

“Like I said,” he says. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Bucky groans and thinks about all of the texts he has to suffer through in this life on account of Steve not being able to behave and Loki not being able to go through one single day without complaining about Thor.

“I hate both of you,” Bucky grouses and Steve just grins.

Steve reaches up on his toes to help ruffle Bucky’s wavy hair from being molded to his head.

“In that case, you’re going to have a great time on this interplanetary space road trip.”

“Whatever,” Bucky says, placing the helmet on the motorcycle seat. He grins, getting excited. “I don’t need you two to have fun. Thor and I are going to go drink space beer and meet hot aliens, I don’t even care if you two end up killing each other.”

“There, there, honey,” Steve says and pats Bucky’s face. “Don’t worry, we’ll pay attention to you too.”

“That really sounds like you’re inviting me to some kind of fucked up threesome,” Bucky says and before Steve can say anything else, he says, loudly, “ _No._ ”

Steve snickers and sets his helmet down. His best friend is honest to god the _worst_. Bucky loves him very much.

“Come on,” Steve says and offers Bucky a hand. “Our friends are waiting.”

“So you did tell them!” Bucky says, visibly brightening.

He takes Steve’s hand and Steve gives it a squeeze.

“Nope,” his insufferable husband says, popping the p, and then he forcibly drags Bucky up the path and to Thor’s door.

  
Here’s what happens: Steve gets tired of the Avengers taking up all of Bucky’s time and so he marches himself over to Avengers Tower, ignores the poor girl at the front desk, and demands JARVIS take him to Commander Maria Hill. Maria is level-headed and terribly amused as the former Captain America pops off, gesturing with his arms and turning red as he details a list of all of the things wrong with SHIELD and the government, beginning with the structural enshrinement of capitalism and a secret history of Nazis and ending with _making a 108 year old man work hours that violate at least three international conventions_ and following that up with a litany of threats up to and including _revealing the true nature of SHIELD Director Nicholas J. Fury’s eye injury._

Well, Maria Hill doesn’t bow to threats, but she does love Steve and she _was_ the officiant of his wedding to the aforementioned 108 year old man, so she makes a good show of being really put out and giving up something meaningful to her and Steve walks out of there with a promise that Bucky will not be contacted for a full month.

“Are you just trying to get out of finding yourself an alternate career path?” Bucky had grinned when Steve told him, toned arms crossed at his smaller, but still very firm chest.

“I am 107 years old, Barnes, I don’t need an alternate career path, I need an alternate husband who doesn’t give me grief about spending time with me!” Steve had huffed and Bucky had found that so fucking cute, he had shoved Steve back onto the couch with a wicked grin.  
“You’re so hot when you’re threatening to leave me for someone else,” he had said, before attaching his mouth to Steve’s neck.

Steve had wriggled and he had whined and he had protested, but ultimately—immediately, really, he did not even pretend to put up a fight—he had given up, dragging his fingers through Bucky’s hair and arching up into him.

Bucky had crowed about the victory, as was his marital right, and then spent _some time_ with his terribly annoying and smoking hot husband right then and there.

  
Well one thing led to another and after Bucky had basically sucked Steve’s brain out through his dick, Steve had laid back against the armrest, panting and trying to catch his breath, before suddenly lighting the fuck up and turning a terribly excited expression toward Bucky and saying, “ _Space road trip!_ ”

Well, was Bucky going to say no to a _space road trip_?

So here they are at New Asgard, picking up their friends for an intergalactic space road trip that Steve—the absolute bastard and singular worst person that Bucky has ever known—clearly hadn’t told either of them about.

Both Thor and Loki are bug-eyed and slack-jawed for just a moment before Thor also lights the fuck up.

“A road trip! Through the galaxies! Why, that sounds like a marvelous idea, Captain!” Thor says loudly, pleased as a peach, clapping his enormous hand down on Steve’s shoulder and making Steve’s knees knock together.

“Steve,” Steve begs. “Just call me Steve.”

Loki gives Bucky a look like Bucky _will_ be hearing about this for the next 3-6 months and Bucky sighs and considers throwing his phone out of their spaceship window.

“I suppose New Asgard will simply run itself?” Loki says, whirling on his heels to demand of Thor. “The people will rule themselves? The letters will get answered? The Vanir contingent we are expecting in two weeks’ time will land here and not be perplexed and confused by the barbaric and frankly arcane method of transportation known as the _subway_?”

Well, Thor and Loki start bickering about matters of Asgardian politics that Bucky does not know a whit about and which Bucky is almost positive could have been avoided if his husband had simply _done what he was fucking asked._

“Do you see the way I’m looking at you?” Bucky says, boring a hole into the back of Steve’s head.

“Nope,” Steve says. “I’m turned in the other direction.”

“Can you guess the way I’m looking at you?” Bucky asks.

“Yes,” Steve says, pleasantly. “That’s why I’m turned in the other direction.”

Bucky is going to strangle the love of his life one day and it will be very well deserved.

After a few minutes of furious squabbling, Thor and Loki turn back toward Steve and Bucky. Thor, beaming, slings an arm around Loki’s rigid shoulders. Loki, for his part, looks as though he would dearly love to shove his brother and sovereign into a Tesseract-created black hole.

“It is decided!” he says. “Valkyrie will continue to rule New Asgard in my stead as we go on our space road trip adventure.”

There’s a beat during which Steve looks smug and Bucky looks surprised and Loki just lets out a very long-suffering sigh and says, “Great. And who is going to tell Valkyrie that?”

  
There’s a few things to sort out, like which spaceship to take and how to reliably inform Valkyrie and Sif that they are now in charge of the Vanir delegation without getting murdered and what clothes to pack and where they’ll be traveling.

By day’s end, nothing has been packed and Loki and Steve are bickering over the ethics of space and time travel and Valkyrie is drinking and Sif, done with all of them, is throwing knives at a target.

Bucky finds himself down the path from New Asgard, by the docked ships. Thor is standing at the railing of one of them, looking out over the water—and his village.

“How’s it going?” Bucky asks, crossing the bridge and onto the deck.

Thor smiles at him and shifts aside, leaving room for Bucky.

“Oh, you know,” he says. “It depends on the day.”

“Seems like everything’s going better,” Bucky says. He nods toward the village. “You’re growing.”

“It’s funny,” Thor says. “If you had seen what Asgard had been at its height—it was glorious. There was nothing like our people, in our ancestral home.”

Bucky hums, knowing this is a sore spot for Thor. Across the water, a group of Asgardians are loading something onto the other ship.

“Things never really end up the way you expect them to,” Bucky says. “Sometimes you think you’re gonna have a nice, quiet life with your best friend in a shitty tenement apartment. Maybe you’d go with some gals and maybe he would, but it wouldn’t be memorable. One or the other of you would get married and then you’d have a family. You’d grow old and die, hopefully close to each other. But it would be...boring. Unremarkable.”

Thor looks over at Bucky.

“You are anything but unremarkable, Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky gives him a grateful half-smile.

“Thanks,” he says. “Some days I think I’d still like that. To be boring. To have...the kind of life where you have to create conflict just to feel like something’s going on.”

“Yeah?” Thor asks in surprise.

Bucky lets out a low laugh and stretches his arms in front of him.

“Sometimes,” he says. “But that usually passes.”

“Because it is better to have Steve Rogers this way than a life without him?” his friend asks, knowingly.

Bucky smiles.

“Yeah,” he says. “It was never going to be a boring, unremarkable life. Not with him around.”

Thor hums at that.

Bucky knocks a shoulder with Thor and looks at him. “Maybe it’s not the Asgard you thought you’d have, but it’s still Asgard. It’s still yours, you know?”

Thor swallows. After a moment, he nods.

“It is better to have it, than to have a life without it,” he says.

A breeze off the water stirs his long, golden hair. Thor still has a bit of his depression weight, but he’s stopped drinking and that’s transformed his body. Maybe Loki’s helped too, Bucky doesn’t know. He’s not hardened, but he’s not too soft. He’s settled into something in between, something that he stands straight in; a Thor that he wears with confidence.

“You and Loki,” Bucky asks, curious. “Are you—?”

“I have asked him to marry me,” Thor says warmly.

Bucky’s eyes widen.

“Holy shit,” he says. “What did he say? Is that...allowed?”

Thor gives him an amused look.

“And who will stop us?”

Bucky runs a hand through his hair and smiles wryly.

“Yeah, okay,” he says.

“As for what he said,” Thor says, trailing off. He drums his fingers on top of the wooden railing. “He will give me his answer, one day.”

“Not now?”

Thor shakes his head.

“It is a lot for him, now. It’s a lot for all of us,” he says. “One day he will be ready to rule by my side. And on that day, he will say yes to me.”

Thor doesn’t look put out by this. If anything, he draws confidence from it, a self-assuredness and pleasure Bucky has never known on him. The sun glints off the crown of his golden hair and he smiles. It’s genuine. He looks like a king.

Bucky’s happy for him; he’s genuinely happy for his friend.

Bucky rests his elbows on the railing and changes the subject.

“Should we just steal the Tesseract back, zip ourselves into space?” Bucky asks and Thor groans. “Leave the spaceships out of it?”

“No thank you,” he says. “I have had a life’s share of dealing with that accursed cube.”

“Where is it, anyway?” Bucky says and narrows his eyes. “Loki doesn’t—”

“Norn’s no!” Thor exclaims. “I’m not that stupid. Stab me once, shame on you. Stab me twice and continue stealing the Tesseract, shame on everyone who did not learn the first seven times.”

Bucky chuckles.

He doesn’t know where the cube is, nor does he want to. Maybe Thor sent it back into space. Maybe he took his big hammer and smashed it. If there are pieces of the Tesseract in the bottom of the ocean, good luck to all of the fishes in the multiverse.

He’s about to muse aloud, about what alternate realities might be like for sea creatures when suddenly, there’s shouting in the distance.

“What is that?” Thor says suddenly, squinting.

The shouting grows louder, more heated; almost chaotic.

Bucky doesn’t need to look. He can recognize the voices from afar.

He sighs.

“I believe that is my husband and your best Councillor shrieking at each other. Or us. Maybe both.”

“Best is a bit of an overstatement,” Thor mumbles, stroking his beard. “He is top three, perhaps.”

“You only have three,” Bucky says.

“Then what is all the fuss?” Thor beams. He claps a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Come, Bucky Barnes. Let us break them apart before we have to hide any more dead bodies. And then, it is time for one more adventure together.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and straightens. He’s excited. It’s stupid because just last year he had been thrown from reality to reality and the instability and literal naval jerking of it all should have put him off space travel forever. But what can he say? He’s a fucking nerd. Maybe there will be space dinosaurs this time.

“What’s one more trip through space with a literal fucking alien?” Bucky says out loud. Then he looks at Thor and jabs a metal finger in his chest. “And it’s _Bucky_. Don’t be fucking weird.”

Thor grins and Bucky rolls his eyes.

Then he pauses, realizing something.

“Wait...any more dead bodies?” Bucky says. “Did you say any _more_?”

Thor smiles and crosses the deck behind him.

“Thor?” Bucky calls. “Thor! What do you mean _any more_? Thor!”

Thor grins and Bucky chases after him.

The two of them continue bickering down the wooden bridge, across the grass, and up the path back to New Asgard. At the crest of the hill waits Steve, arms crossed and impatient, and Loki, rolling his eyes and already exasperated.

Soon, the four of them will board a spaceship and hurtle at ill-advised speeds off of the planet.

Soon, they will go together, onto their next alien adventure.

“All right, nerds,” Bucky says and slings an arm around Steve’s shoulders. He presses a kiss to Steve’s disgruntled head and grins. “Let’s go back to space.”

*

  
**art:** Thor and Bucky, friends; **art by:** nalonzooo

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all there is! Somehow, there isn't any more. 
> 
> Thank you all so very much for reading and supporting and commenting on this absolutely ODDBALL journey. I did not start out writing this thinking it would be the LONGEST fic I have ever written, but oh how the turntables. If you've taken nothing else away from this massive 147,000 work of batshit crazy canon divergence, please remember this: THOR AND BUCKY FRIENDSHIP RIGHTS. Thank you.
> 
> PLEASE LEAVE SO MUCH LOVE FOR NIKKI--this fic might be 147K of pure fucking nonsense, but Nikki did **25** pieces of art for this collab, not including the banner and the Tesseract animation. That's. INSANE. Nalonzooo, you are genuinely insane. In the best way. I cannot even begin to say how grateful I am to you and to your art and to your friendship. 
> 
> Finally, THANK YOU to my fellow NASBB Mods, who really spent a fucking doozy of a year running this massive event. We laughed, we cried, we screamed an inappropriate amount--but here we are, at the end of the line. Literally wouldn't have made it through this year without you guys. I appreciate you all and all sorts of other sentimental nonsense. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> \+ Thank you to the late, great David Bowie for lending us his song for the title and vibe of this fic: [Space Oddity by David Bowie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRMZ_5WYmCg).
> 
> \+ My artists are fucking phenomenal, so please give them your love: [nalonzooo](https://twitter.com/nalonzooo) and [cyclamental](https://twitter.com/cyclamental) on Twitter!
> 
> \+ The ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE art can be RTed [here](https://twitter.com/nalonzooo/status/1318248850033799168?s=20)>! 
> 
> \+ This fic can be RTed [here on Twitter](https://twitter.com/spacerenegades/status/1315711837854404609?s=20) or reblogged [here on Tumblr](https://spacerenegades.tumblr.com/post/631797082471235584/space-oddity-ground-control-to-sergeant-barnes#notes).
> 
> \+ Finally, you can also follow my shriekings if you so unwisely desire [@spacerenegades (Twitter)](https://twitter.com/spacerenegades) or [@spacerenegades (Tumblr)](https://spacerenegades.tumblr.com/). ♥


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